The harvest is particularly early this year thanks to a weather favorable to the vine cycle which accentuated the effects of climate change, explains Bernard Farges, president of the National Committee for Wine Interprofessions (CNIV).
If the quality should be there, volumes may again suffer from the climate context, warns the winegrower in an interview with AFP.
Question: In what regions have the harvest began and how to explain this precocity?
Answer: I am in Bordeaux, in my vines, like my colleagues. We are in cremants and some whites this week, but other regions started last week: Languedoc, Roussillon. The Rhône valley, with whites, also this week … and after that it will follow with the Loire, Gascogne and Champagne in a few days.
We will see precocity in all regions. It is explained by a climate which was rather pleasant, with a vegetative cycle of the vine which was not interrupted from April to August 10. We had sunshine, rather ideal temperatures and water normally.
It led to a shorter cycle than usual. Hence this precocity, accentuated by the period of high temperatures last week, which led to a concentration inside the clusters. It may have advanced the harvest by 4-5 days, but we knew before we would have an early year.
At the logistical level, we do not discover the day before the harvest that we will harvest the next day. It is always complicated to recruit, because it is a need that is important for a short time. In this August period, it may be little more complicated than when it was in September. We are used to having to manage this problem. An advance of barely a few days, it is not trivial but it is not insurmountable and everyone gets there.
Q: Is this year so exceptional in the context of climate change?
A: It’s part of the early years, as we have known for 10-15 years now. Viticulture is a lookout for climate change.
The regions that usually start the former started, earlier, the first. Those who start later will have about the same gap in relation to a “normal year”, finally, which has become normal.
For 30 years we have won almost two weeks of precocity of the harvest, it can go up to twenty days for a year like this.
The wine sector has launched important studies for ten years, with various organizations. We have an adaptation plan for climate change, region by region, training tools, dissemination of new practices, grape varieties that integrate regions in which they were not previously, new methods of vine management, location choices to limit the sunshine a little …
Q: After the dark year 2024, what quality and what volumes do you anticipate?
A: Qualitatively, everyone says that it is very good, it’s very healthy.
Even if the harvests begin and that we still have work in front of us, the temperatures that are announced for the next two weeks, much milder, reassure us a lot. It is perfect for advancing maturity normally, without stress as we could have with the very high temperatures of last week.
After, in terms of volume, all regions think that the volume will be low.
Last year, it was a very weak harvest, historically, for other reasons. For health reasons, mildew, bad floraisons.
This year, the concentration, by drought and temperatures, will undoubtedly bring a rather low harvest. But of very high quality.
Posted on August 19 at 3:13 p.m., AFP
