Harvest happenings (part 2)
Harvest happenings (part 2)
"Everyone talks about the weather, but nobody seems to do anything about it." (Charles Dudley Warner)
To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour…
(William Blake - Auguries of Innocence)
or
To see a world in the robe of a wine
And a heaven in its nose
Hold infinity in the wood of a vine
And eternity therein, I suppose…
The following is adapted from a report posted on ‘La Chaine Météo’ (in French) which gives a fairly comprehensive overview of this year’s grape harvest from the rather dry (inverse pun intended) perspective of meteorological phenomena.
But were we able to peer into the soul of every bottle of wine and read it’s weather history through the myriad elements it contains, we would have an accurate summary of that year’s seasons, sun, wind, rain, frost, thunder, hail, the evolution of the cryptogramic diseases that may have affected it, and how they impacted the soil and the vine itself. But for the most part, we just open them and drink them.
Living matter, the wood of the vine and the blood of the grape bear testimony to climate change. According to an article in EOS, the longest archival record of grape harvests can be found in Burgundy.
“By mining archival records of grape harvest dates going back to 1354, scientists have reconstructed a 664-year record of temperature traced by fruit ripening. The records, from the Burgundy region of France, represent the longest series of grape harvest dates assembled up until now and reveal strong evidence of climate change in the past few decades.”
Meanwhile, according to preliminary estimates from the French Ministry of Agriculture, the French harvest in 2024 will be adversely affected by problems such as mildew, frost, and hail, with reduced harvests forecast in almost all wine-growing regions. How big will this drop be? And what impact will it have on the quality of the harvest?
The 2024 harvest in France looks set to be patchy and uncertain from region to region, after a season marked by capricious weather conditions. According to Decanter, it will be one of the smallest harvests of the past 100 years, with only 6 others being smaller, two of them having been as recent as 2017 and 2021.
A very wet start to the growing season and a late arrival to summer
Spring and early summer were particularly wet, favouring the spread of diseases such as mildew, which delayed the development of the vines. In the Bordeaux region, a large number of winegrowers were taken aback by this year's unpredictable weather. Regions like the Pays de la Loire, had 50% more rainfall in the spring than is usual. In Centre-Val de Loire, the surplus reached almost 60%, and up to 80% in the PACA (Provence, Alpes, Côte d’Azur) region. Spring 2024 was the wettest spring in France since 2008.
Which does not bode well for fruit crops like grapes, which need ample sun to reach maturity. In addition to the heavy rain, a succession of cold drops at altitude triggered a number of thunderstorms, some of them violent, such as the one on 2 May, which destroyed a large part of the Chablis appellation.
The start of the summer continued in the same vein, with June seeing 20% more rainfall than normal, and a slight temperature deficit of -0.2°C, something that had not happened for 28 consecutive months. The first fortnight of June was very cool, introducing the harrowing horrors of a few light frosts between the 10th and 15th, particularly in Champagne. The weather took a long time to improve. It was not until the last ten days of July that dry, warm weather began to arrive across the country. In the end, the summer was close to normal in terms of sunshine and rainfall, and ranked as the 12th hottest summer on record.
Varied regional impact of complicated weather season
The French Ministry of Agriculture is forecasting a 13% drop in the harvest nationwide, with the figure even reaching 20% in major wine-growing regions such as Bordeaux and Burgundy. France produced 48 million hectolitres of wine in 2023, maintaining its position as the world's leading producer.
In Lorraine, winegrowers in the Côtes de Toul and Moselle regions had to contend with particularly difficult weather conditions. Nevertheless, the winegrowers remain optimistic about the quality of the vintage, despite an expected drop in harvest volumes. They are forecasting a half-harvest, while hoping that the continued fine weather will enable the grapes to ripen well.
In Alsace, the situation varies from plot to plot. Unlike 2023, which was a very sunny year, it has been raining all the time, and this is bound to have an impact on the harvest, particularly because of the mildew that has attacked the Pinots. Winegrowers in Alsace are therefore expecting a complicated vintage and lower yields.
The southern regions, particularly Languedoc-Roussillon, have not escaped this trend, but for different reasons. There, drought is threatening the vines, with production down by around 40% compared with a normal year.
In the PACA region and Corsica, the vines did not suffer too much from the drought this year. There was virtually no water stress, which is rare, and conditions were almost ideal. Producers of Ajaccio PDO harvested slightly more grapes than last year thanks to conditions that were much less dry than usual.
Harvest dates and outlook
The grape harvest is the time of year when grapes for wine production are picked. Depending on the region, this can take place between August and October, although in years past, harvest rarely took place before September. Weather conditions play a crucial role in determining the date of the harvest. The ripening of the grapes depends largely on the amount of sunshine, temperature, and rainfall throughout the year. Winegrowers regularly carry out ripeness checks on their plots, measuring the sugar content, acidity and phenolic ripeness of the grapes. These analyses help them to determine the ideal moment to harvest each plot, depending on the profile of the wine they are looking for.
For this 2024 vintage, while yields will be lower than usual, the quality should be there. Recent rains have put the brakes on some harvests. The water will soak the grapes, which in general reduces sugar content, but following extended heat spells, they should balance the grapes and improve ripeness.
For Ajaccio PDO, harvesting began in recent days, as in the PACA region. The grapes are generally 10 to 15 days ahead of schedule for varieties that were already ripe. In Alsace, the start of the Crémant harvest was set for 29 August, with still wines following on 9 September. Despite the challenges posed by the weather, winegrowers are expecting a high-quality 2024 vintage thanks to a return to good weather and rigorous checks on grape ripeness. On average, in the other regions, the harvest will take place on normal dates, from early September to early October.
Although harvest forecasts are circumspect due to damage caused by mildew and bad weather, there is cautious optimism among growers. With the recent improvement in weather conditions, the 2024 harvest could still surprise with the quality of the wines produced.
So, on a positive note, 2024 may be limited in quantity, but high in quality. Of course we won’t really know until next year at the earliest. In the meanwhile, we might want to peer into the soul of harvests past…
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