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Early harvests latest test for French winemakers – AFR


Winemakers across France, forced to start grape harvesting much earlier than normal due to hot temperatures, fear grape quality will suffer from climate-related stress.

The exceptionally dry conditions spread from the rugged hills of Herault along the Mediterranean, where harvest is already underway, to normally verdant Alsace in the north-east.

Waves of extreme heat this summer accelerated grape ripening, meaning harvest had to start one to three weeks or more earlier – in Languedoc-Roussillon, some growers even started at the end of July.

“We were all a bit surprised, they started to ripen very quickly in the last few days,” said Francois Capdellayre, president of the Dom Brial cooperative in Baixas, outside Perpignan.

He said the scissors came out on August 3 for the region’s signature Muscat grapes, followed by Chardonnay and Grenache Blanc.

“In more than 30 years, I have never started my harvest on August 9,” said Jerome Despey, a vineyard owner in the Herault department.

– stressed –

Like other farmers, French winegrowers have also been struggling for years with increasingly frequent extreme weather conditions such as spring frosts, devastating hailstorms and unusually heavy rainfall.

But the combination of a historic drought this summer – July was the driest month on record since 1961 – and high temperatures are taking a particular toll on the vineyards.

Only 10 percent of French vineyard plots use artificial irrigation systems, which can be difficult or prohibitively expensive to install.

And while vines are more resilient than many other plants, with roots reaching deep into the soil over years of growth, even they have limited resistance.

When water is scarce, the vines suffer “water stress” and protect themselves by shedding leaves and no longer providing nutrients to the grapes, stunting their growth.

In Alsace, “We haven’t had a drop of rain for two months,” said Gilles Ehrhart, President of the AVA Producers’ Association.

“We’re going to have a very, very small harvest” after harvest begins around August 26, he said.

And when temperatures exceed 38 degrees Celsius (100 Fahrenheit), “the grape burns — it dries up, loses volume and quality suffers” because the resulting alcohol content is “too high for consumers,” said Pierre Champetier, president of Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) for the Ardèche region south of Lyon.

Champetier started harvesting Monday when “we started around September 20 40 years ago,” he said.

Now he worries that global warming will make such early harvests “normal.”

– quality endangered –

Some winegrowers are still holding out in hopes of rain in the coming weeks, such as red grape growers in Herault, where harvest is scheduled to begin as usual in early September.

In Burgundy, which saw its earliest harvest debut two years ago – August 16 – in more than four centuries of persecution, the harvest begins in the cellars in Saône-et-Loire around August 25.

But just south of the Rhone Valley, “the heat wave accelerated ripening by more than 20 days compared to last year,” according to the Inter-Rhone producer association.

They’re still hoping grape quality will hold up, as will champagne growers in the Northeast, where harvest will begin in late August — though yields are set to fall by 9 percent annually due to a brutal spring cold and hailstorms.

Bordeaux plans to start harvesting grapes for the region’s sparkling wines on August 17 – prized by connoisseurs but only one percent of total production.

Next come “dry whites, sweet whites and then the reds,” said Christophe Chateau of the CIVB producer group, although exact dates will not be finalized until next week.

But he warned that even rainfall from storms forecast across France from this weekend will be “insufficient” to ensure a “beautiful vintage”.

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