Grape harvest in France starts early

This is a title that seems to be more and more frequent as the global climate changes – apart from last year which was a disaster.

Summer 2022 has been particularly hot, with records broken in several places, including parts of the UK. This has inevitably had an effect on wine grapes, although the biggest impact may be due to drought rather than just the heat itself. Although it is still relatively early in terms of the wine harvest and thus predictions are somewhat tentative - a lot can happen in a couple of weeks in the vineyard at this time of year – some regions are predicting good quality but reduced quantity.

Last year volumes of many French wines were drastically reduced due to the weather conditions through 2021, starting with severe frosts, followed by devastating hail and ending with rot caused by excessive rain. This year, another crop reducing weather condition has arisen – drought. This will certainly reduce the volume of wine produced in some regions, but the saving grace is that quality should be high.

Small grapes give less juice but have greater concentration of flavour, with a greatly increased skin to pulp ratio. Hopes are thus high currently for good quality wines in 2022, with deep flavour concentration.

Too late for the grapes to plump up in the champagne region, where the harvest has already begun in the southern Aube area. Improbable also in Sancerre, where Domaine Michel Thomas, one of the leading producers, will begin harvesting on September 7. Although many regions will also be starting around this time, those harvesting a little later could benefit from September rain, but also run the risk of losing their crop through hailstorms. Who would be a wine producer?

I always used to wonder how hail could have such a dramatic effect on vineyards, thinking of the ‘petit-pois’ sized hail stones we normally see here in Sussex. Having recently experienced hailstones in France I now see why. Hailstones the size of ping-pong balls or golf balls are relatively common and sometimes they can be tennis ball sized. Roofs can be severely damaged, windscreens smashed and cars pock marked in their entirety – insurance claims are rife. Vineyards can thus be shredded in a matter of minutes, losing both fruit and leaves.

From Bordeaux to Tuscany and the Rhine Valley, reports are all concerning earlier ripening of the grapes and thus earlier picking, due to high temperatures and lack of rainfall. Some vineyards in Bordeaux started picking in mid-August and in Germany the harvest has started exceptionally early. In the Catalonia region of Spain, the harvest started 10 days earlier and they expect the harvest to be 15% lower in volume.

Other detrimental effects of the long, hot Summer have been the wildfires springing up across Europe. The huge fire in the Gironde near Bordeaux luckily affected very few vines, but in parts of Spain, entire vineyards have been wiped out by fire.

One beneficial effect of the hot dry weather has been to reduce diseases, good again for quality at harvest time, although overall the downside of Summer 2022 outweighs the up side – in terms of quantity. Hopefully, once the wines are made, we shall all be singing their praises in terms of quality.