from Wine Spectator

Vintners are reporting widespread damage in Bordeaux, Burgundy and Champagne, with some losing their entire 2017 crop

Updated April 28

Cold weather struck France’s young vine buds again this week, and Bordeaux is the latest region to suffer frost damage. Farther north, Burgundy and Champagne also weathered cold conditions and frost. Damage reports are incomplete so far, mainly because winegrowers have been busy preparing anti-frost measures.

Bordeaux’s Right Bank Hit Hard

“We can already estimate that we have lost nearly half of the potential crop,” said Xavier Coumau, president of Bordeaux’s Syndicate of Wine and Spirits Courtiers.

Many are calling it the worst frost since 1991, as temperatures dropped to nearly 26° F in some spots. Damage has been reported on the Right Bank, including in Pomerol and St.-Emilion—though the plateau of St.-Emilion was spared—as well as Pessac and Graves and even up in the western edge of the Médoc.

“It is rather dramatic,” Stéphane Derenoncourt, proprietor of Domaine de l’A in Castillon and consultant to dozens of Right Bank estates, told Wine Spectator. “Only the plateau and the tops of slopes are spared. There is damage everywhere, sometimes 100 percent. We haven’t seen everything yet, and it is forecast to freeze again tonight.”

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In Pessac and Graves, growers were checking their vines as well. Véronique Sanders of Château Haut-Bailly reported a significant frost. By Friday morning, she had inspected the fields and found one-third of the buds were dead and another third were damaged. From Château Villa Bel-Air in Graves, Jean-Charles Cazes reported that 90 percent of the potential crop was gone.

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Philippe Dambrine, CEO of Châteaus Cantemerle in Haut-Médoc and Grand Corbin in St.-Emilion, told Wine Spectator that Cantemerle got off lightly with an estimated 30 percent loss, but St.-Emilion was another story. “I just come back from St.-Emilion. Our vineyard of Château Grand Corbin has been severely impacted by the frost. We expect 90 percent loss this year.”

On the flats of St.-Emilion between the côte and the river, Gerard Perse hired a helicopter to warm the air at Chateau Monbousquet, while Pavie escaped relatively unscathed. Nearby at Château Angélus, Stéphanie de Bouard-Rivoal spent several hours in the vineyard, surveying the damage. Her team did not undertake any measures of protection, a decision she has asked her technical team to rethink.

Enologist Dany Rolland told Wine Spectator, “It will take time to gauge much of the damage, because everything is not yet visible. It is necessary to wait until the shoots blacken, then die or not. Percentages will be difficult to estimate, even within the same plot.”