Volnay slammed.
Pommard Perezolles almost wiped out totally. Many areas have 100% loss of fruit.
This is sad.
I wonder if this is the new reality because of changing weather patterns and of so, would some sort of netting need to become part of a the standard way of combatting this issue?
In the future nets will probably have to be the solution, but I have heard that these are currently not in compliance with the rules of the AOC. The wines could not be sold under the appellation name.
Third year in a row the Volnay/Pommard/Beaune sector has been hit with 50%+ losses, with prices for fruit likely to continue skyrocketing (and supply diving too, of course).
Maybe. Maybe not. Supply and demand is a fickle thing. I concur, supply has been hit - but - with that is demand stifled due to concerns about end product quality?
**This is NOT to take anything away from the horrible damage and I sincerely send condolences to those affected…I’m only making a pedantic economic point…
Prices are an issue, but a much bigger problem is that more and more smaller domains are in financial difficulty and diversity as we know it, could be history soon…
What are high prices to those who have nothing to sell ?
What are high prices to those who have nothing to sell
True - but not my point. I was commenting on the conclusion that hail damage = fewer wines and that scarcity would lead to price escalation. But, damaged vines/grapes may (will) impact product quality and should stifle demand for said product. Since supply and demand must be in equilibrium to have a clearing price I was pointing out the other side of the trade.
In November '14, Nico Rossignol was talking about the growing momentum for defensive cloud seeding rockets. At that time he said if there is another year of tremendous loss, some folks may go belly up.
Mercy mercy me
If you type grele and bourgogne in Google you will get the French news reports including one with Nicolas on France2. Brutal images.
Wow…a true time traveler…I’ll have to ask him about that during my next visit in Burgundy.
Whoopsie. '13…
So far, feedback from different areas of France indicate that the Savoie took a few small hits, but that’s it.
Anybody hear otherwise?
They do have a sonic cannon to break up the hail, in the upper end, I think, the problem as I understand it is finding volunteers to man the thing. It has apparently worked wonders in Bordeaux…
we visited the cote the Beaune today. Pommard really got hit really bad, I have some pictures but I forgot my cable to transfer them. As said some vineyards got hit 100% but not everything was hit (eg chiveau). volnay seems to be hit pretty bad as well and in Meursault some vignerons reported 30% loss. Puligny and more south got hit as well but to a lesser extend. everythig looked perfect this year untill last saturday.
This morning there was apparently a storm over Nuits Sait Georges as well, but no idea of the possible damage there we head there tomorrow.
PS bonnes mares 2006 from Groffier and Blanchots 2009 from Raveneau on a terrace in the sun in Beaune were lovely! ![[cheers.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/0ff9bfcdb0964982cd3240b6159868fbdf215b1a.gif "cheers"){kind=small}
Word out of Vosne:
25-30 percent losses in 1er and Grand crus
10-15 percent losses lower on the hill in villages territory.
F-Bomb.
Another bit of input:
20% losses in Aloxe
Varied losses in Nuits St Georges, stronger on the Northern side.
Hopefully some sunshine comes soon to dry things out, mitigating further related issues.
As I understand it, hail impacts only quantity, not quality of wine. For example, in 2012 there were four different hailstorms in Burgundy, but the wines – what there are of them – are very, very good. Quality is dependent on the nature of the remaining growing season after the hailstorm, according to my Burgundian winemaker friends. Good weather will lead to high quality. Unfortunately, there’s nothing the weather can do about quantity. My heart really goes out to the affected growers – it must be like seeing your child beaten up by bullies at school.
Im not sure if that’s totally true. 2001 Volnay isn’t very good and my understanding its because of the hail that year.
It’s definitely not true…depending on the stage of the grapes…hail can bruise them (as it did in 1983) resulting in off tastes…that some people thought of as “rot”. It can also otherwise damage the plants and, therefore, the quality of the grapes at harvest.
If taken care of properly, I guess, it “only” affects quantity as those grapes will be cut off/dropped…but if they’re not found and gotten rid of they can certainly affect quality.
I don’t if there is any basis for it, but Ive heard people say that the damage can carry on to subsequent vintages as well. For example Ive heard bouchard volnay caillerets took a couple of years to recover from 2001.
Does the hail damage tend to make the surviving clusters and resulting wines better, worse, or different than if there hadn’t been hail damage?