Frost in France

J

Jeff Grossman

Jeff Grossman
In the past couple of days large swaths of wine-growing France were hit with below-zero temperatures. The only reports I've seen are from Cote de Beaune where damage is reported by some in the 80%-100% range. Could be a lost crop.

The Loire and Champagne are said to be affected, too.

Great picture of candles set out in Chablis vineyards: a tweet pic. The nearby tweets from the same person are also relevant. The goo.gl link goes to a FaceBook photo album with many more photos.
 
originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
Frost in FranceIn the past couple of days large swaths of wine-growing France were hit with below-zero temperatures. The only reports I've seen are from Cote de Beaune where damage is reported by some in the 80%-100% range. Could be a lost crop.

The Loire and Champagne are said to be affected, too.

Great picture of candles set out in Chablis vineyards: a tweet pic. The nearby tweets from the same person are also relevant. The goo.gl link goes to a FaceBook photo album with many more photos.
Click to expand...

Excellent photo, but obviously not candles. "bougies" in this case should probably be taken figuratively.
 
A few other thoughts.

The photo which looks through the town, from west to east, seems to indicate that all efforts were aimed at the grand cru vineyards.

When I read reports of frost in wine growing regions, I always hope for the best. Meaning that some of the best vintages come in years of early frost that would produce a smaller but better crop. Though the photos show this frost to be particularly poorly timed in terms of the budding vines.
 
It's bad in lots of places. Full extent of the damage should be known next week, but Loire, Champagne and all over Burgundy were hit hard, with some people saying 80-100% damage.
 
originally posted by robert ames:
below zero in centigrade, that is. all frost is, by definition, below zero on the centigrade scale.
Click to expand...

The Twitter feed has a quote from d'Angerville that he saw -2 to -4 *C.
 
originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
originally posted by robert ames:
below zero in centigrade, that is. all frost is, by definition, below zero on the centigrade scale.
Click to expand...

The Twitter feed has a quote from d'Angerville that he saw -2 to -4 *C.
Click to expand...
They saw roughly -4 in Cheverny as well, and parts of Chinon, Bourgeuil etc. Like I said, it's bad.
 
Great picture of candles set out in Chablis vineyards: a tweet pic. The nearby tweets from the same person are also relevant. The goo.gl link goes to a FaceBook photo album with many more photos.
Click to expand...

Pretty, in the way that oil slicks into a rainbow of colors is.
 
I understand why irrigation is banned, to make the roots go deeper, etc., but can anyone tell me why aoc rules don't allow any kind of structure to protect vines from a) frost; and b) hail? Is it part of the whole tough love ethos, or is there some rationale that supposedly makes wines better?
 
No such a thing Oswaldo.
They are protected in areas where the risk is high and worth the investment.
The protection cost is around 20 k/ha. So even in Vouvray you better loose 1 harvest out of 15 than investing. Or 1 out of 25 in Cote d'Or.
And most of the growers in these northern areas have an insurance that will cover the cost of work for the season.
They will just loose the commercial profit : probably around 1 or 2 / bottle in most of the cases. Not worth the 20k...
That DRC who made a bad move : they lost something like 500k on the 27. They could replace the shit every 2 weeks and it would still be worth it.
 
originally posted by Oswaldo Costa:
I understand why irrigation is banned, to make the roots go deeper, etc., but can anyone tell me why aoc rules don't allow any kind of structure to protect vines from a) frost; and b) hail? Is it part of the whole tough love ethos, or is there some rationale that supposedly makes wines better?
Click to expand...

as i understand it, in chablis overhead sprinklers are used as a preventative to frost damage. not to be confused as irrigation.
 
Thanks, Ben. I see Pinon hit hard again.

One thing I couldn't quite decipher: Did the vignerons say that vineyards with grass cover were somewhat spared compared to ones with bare earth?
 
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