Hail destroys vineyards and dashes hopes of a good crop in the Gard region of Southern France

ard winegrower Mickaël Robert now has no hope of picking more than a few clusters of grapes from three quarters of his Domaine du Mas du Fort. “I haven’t even gone around all of my 55 hectares, but most of my vines planted in Fontanès and Souvignargues have been completely shaven by hail, with a carpet of 80cm of leaves and grapes around the base of the vines. In two or three days’ time, all the broken canes will dry out”, said a despondent Robert on May 24.

Around 5pm on the previous day, a severe but very localised thunderstorm followed the banks of the Vidourle river up to Villevieille on the outskirts of Sommières. “First we had nearly 70mm of rain then just hail for 15 minutes with hailstones 2 to 3cm in size”, recalled Robert.

Once his blocks have dried out, he will spray copper over the vines in the hope of helping them to heal. “At the moment, it’s impossible to get in the vineyards, they are waterlogged, the piles of hailstones haven’t melted yet and more storms are forecast”. Robert wondered whether there was any point in continuing to tend to the few grapes left on the vines.

Camille Lebrun has gone past that stage: “I have 16 hectares and all of them were 100% destroyed, except for 1.8 ha where I estimate there to be around 60% losses. My son, a young winegrower who started out in 2020, has three hectares that are 60% affected out of 7 hectares of bearing vineyards. My father, who is 78, had never seen anything like it”, lamented Lebrun, who is also the chair of the Souvignargues co-operative winery. She has asked the winery’s secretary to call all its member growers to assess the extent of the damage.

“The only lucky thing in our misfortune is that most of the winery’s volumes come from Montpezat, Combas and Saint-Côme, which were not affected by the storm”. Every year for the past four years, this part of the Gard area has at least one adverse weather event, either frost or hail. “Our saving grace is that our vineyards extend over several villages”, said Lebrun, by way of consolation.

Although the Gard area was the worst affected, hail did take some growers by surprise in neighbouring Hérault. “Apparently, there is some localised damage on canes, leaves and clusters in Lauret, in the Pic Saint Loup region, where 65mm of rain fell, mixed with hailstones 0.5 to 1cm in size”, said Paul Hublart, head of the viticulture department at the Chamber of Agriculture.

Storms were also reported farther West in villages like Hérepian, North of Béziers though vineyards do not appear to have suffered too much.

During the same week, damage was reported in Aude, Bouches-du-Rhône, the Luberon and northern Var.