10 days of hail damaged 30,000 hectares of vines across France

o sooner had the chambers of agriculture and winegrowers’ organisations finished their inventory of the damage caused by hail at Whitsun than they had to reactivate their crisis centres throughout the entire end of June. On June 18, the heat wave first turned into a storm and destroyed several dozen hectares in the Pessac-Léognan area. Hail then travelled across the wine regions for 10 consecutive days.

On the first morning of summer, ironically, one of the worst episodes occurred. Bordeaux woke up completely stunned for the third time that month to find its vineyards still clad with a mantle of hailstones that had fallen the evening before. According to Philippe Abadie, director of the business department of the Gironde chamber of agriculture, who is currently revising his estimates upwards, at least 10,000 hectares of vines have lost more than 30% of their crop. After crossing the Gironde, the storm wrought devastation in Cognac, where the marketing board has identified damage over 13,500 ha spanning 170 localities. Over just two days, the region lost 15 % of its production potential.

The storm then travelled East to Beaujolais, which was struck four times starting 21 June. In Cahors, between 80 and 130 mm of rain fell for more than 30 minutes on 23 June. “All of this came with hailstones the size of large olives”, describes Julien Benier, viticulture advisor at the Lot chamber of agriculture. He is expecting losses of 30 to 80%, with berries already brown or on the ground, and bare canes, in a 20 km radius around his two localities.

The storm took the Hérault area and Pic-Saint-Loup appellation by surprise on 24 June. “In the area around Claret, at the epicentre of the storm, 500 ha of vines were affected, 50% of them with 30% damage, 40% between 30 and 80%, and 10% over 80%”, said the chamber of agriculture, after centralising statements by winegrowers on 1 July. Then it was Champagne and the Côte des Bar’s turn on 25 June, when 250 hectares were damaged to varying degrees.