Temps look bad for a couple of days next week too. Damn.
This is very sad. Everyone loses. Less wine to sell, less wine to buy, and even higher prices to be reached.
Why don’t they install frost fans? Or frost irrigation?
26F in Nuits at 6am. The temp is one thing. The length of time sub freezing is a huge factor. Can’t imagine the losses, simply horrible.
Some have I think. Claudine Gaunoux (who runs Francois Gaunoux) posted a video from a wind turbine to her IG feed.
But I’m not sure with low temps for two nights in a row it will make much difference. Maybe.
Three nights/mornings in a row here in the Cote d’Or
Localised light damage likely from the first night
Much worse on the second night (early morning of 7th). Not colder, just a couple of degrees below freezing (in centigrade) but the conditions were in perfect storm territory. The cold is much more damaging when you have humidity and there were snow showers the previous evening. Then the clouds left leaving a clear sky, with early morning sun to burn the damaged shoots, and no wind to keep the air moving.
I went down to Corton-Charlemagne at around 4.30 in the morning, then across to Meursault where I stayed through to 7.30 - and it was clearly colder after dawn rather than before.
What was clear was that the smudgepots were only really being effective to the four closest vines, whereas they are spread out much more widely than that. Conversations with several producers who said that they are not equipped to cover all their vineyards so had to make choices.
Plenty of small wind turbines in evidence which may have helped, but there is clearly going to be some damage and maybe a lot.
This morning was the last day of the north wind - and temperatures at our house which is outside the vineyard area were the lowest of the three nights (minus 4.5C = 24F I think) but without the humidity of the previous day. I dont yet know how it played out in the vines
Chablis has better protection, more different types including thermal cabling in key vineyards, as the region has had a much longer term history of frost risk.
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Work well in Oz with temps down to -5C and sometimes sub zero for over 6 hrs. The real risk is a rare advection frost where the fan draws in colder air from above. Saw this once, vineyards were nuked.
Looks like freezing temperatures next week in the Burgundy region as well. Doesn’t bode well.
Thanks for this, Jasper.
Bill Nanson also has a pretty great and sobering read complete with pictures here -
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Apparently there have also been subzero temps in the N Rhone vineyards too and even further south. -3 to -4 deg C. Bud condition unknown right now.
Yeah, fans would move cold air off the ground but if it’s just blowing more cold, or colder air, then it’ll do more damage. Basically, you’re creating a mini blast freezer which is worse as it’ll remove more heat from the vines freezing them deeper.
As others have said when the temperature is -5C it really doesn’t matter
Interesting - and sad - to see how low quantities due to frosts and high alcohol due to heatwaves seem to be the new normal, often during the same year.
Damage looking really bad. Temperatures hit -6C in Saint-Aubin, for example, two nights in a row. Plus snow yesterday. Not much anything can do about that. I was walking in En Remilly, which normally doesn’t frost, and it had just been wiped out. I lit up smudge pots in a small Beaune parcel I look after, both nights, but I just drove by and there’s still plenty of damage. But clearly Chardonnay and any sites that tend to bud early have been hit really hard.
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Report from Climens — not good. I know the situation in Sauternes and Barsac was also very challenging.
(The Instagram link to the report from Climens is not rendering, but you can go there yourself to read and see the photos.)
Great reporting from Bill. He touches on why we don’t see more of the pots, beyond just availability of labour. €4000 per hectare per day just for the pots and fuel, not including labour. It’s simply not economically viable.
Years ago I asked somebody why we in California have frost protection of all sorts and there, not much. He pointed out that here, somebody might own 50/100/200 acres in one spot whereas there, the ownership is spread all over the place. The Chablis people have worked it out and I expect the the folks in the Cote d Or will work cooperatively…some day
Just heard from a friend in Chambolle that the temperature hit -8 C in the low-lying regional appellations…
That’s tragic news - hard to imagine any buds surviving those kinds of temperatures, irrespective of frost mittigation methods employed.
Clusel Roch posted an estimated loss of 60% in Cote-Rotie…
Depending on grape and location, I’m hearing estimates of 30-100% loss in the Rhone.