Hopes for a good start to the vineyard cycle in France

But prolonged periods of cold, frosty weather seem to have been avoided, particularly as the sap starts to rise and the vines start to sprout tender new shoots. Wine producers in this region are hopeful that they will suffer little if any damage from frost this year, a welcome start to what is becoming a more and more difficult vineyard cycle.

Global warming may be a blessing for the greatly increasing number of English vineyards, allowing the vines to thrive and the grapes to ripen, but it is causing significant problems further south in Europe.

Due to disturbance of the weather patterns, there can be periods of very warm weather in February and even January. The buds on the vines thus start to break, thinking Spring has arrived, only to be caught out by diving temperatures and hard frosts, which ‘burn’ the shoots, resulting in substantial loss of production.

In 2024, however, this particular problem seems not to have occurred, and although the weather is unsettled, very low night temperatures with frost look unlikely until the danger period is past. In the last few days, the young shoots have started appearing, encouraged by temperatures of 28 degrees Celsius.

More potential difficulties await later in the year, but for now the vignerons are breathing a sigh of relief.

The next hurdle to overcome will be the flowering of the vines, taking place towards the end of May and in June, depending on the location. Too much rain and cool temperatures during that period can cause the flowers not to ‘set’ with the new young grapes, again resulting in loss of production.

Along with the vagaries of nature, climate change and other natural difficulties, wine producers are facing other problems across the globe. There is currently a downturn in wine consumption, particularly of red wine at the lower end of the price spectrum.

So much so that vineyards are being ripped up in the Bordeaux region of France, in parts of Chile and regions of Australia. The price obtained for the wines being less than the cost of production, the vineyards have become unviable.

Clearly this is not the case across the board of wine production, with demand for better quality, and thus higher priced, wines increasing. There is also an increase in demand for white wines across Europe and rosé is firmly established as a category throughout the year, not just in the summer months as seems to be the case in the UK.

Producing quality wine has never been easy and if anything is becoming more complicated - see all of the above, plus a plethora of rules and regulations which seem to multiply daily. So, as I sit listening to the song of a nightingale and the first cuckoo in the distance, I’m hoping the weather holds this Spring, there is little rain in June, there are no periods of drought, high temperatures and resulting wildfires and the Autumn is dry and sunny at harvest time. Its rather a lot to hope for!​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​