(Decanter) - It's been a year that has kept many winemakers on their toes and yields are set to be small in several areas.

‘It has been the earliest harvest I remember,’ said winemaker Marcelo Retamal, comparing 2017 to the last two decades of Chilean vintages.

Chile’s 2017 harvest arrived up to a month early in some regions, but was also notable for high temperatures and low yields.

‘2017 is clearly an atypical vintage, marked by extremely high temperatures, early physiological stages from budding to harvest, and particularly low yields,’ said Michel Friou, winemaker at Maipo’s Almaviva, where yields were down 26%.