Farmers in France cheer vintage year

TWENTY-EIGHTEEN is shaping up to be a vintage year for French wine – the best for almost a decade.

The near perfect combination of a wet spring followed by a long hot summer has left wine makers rubbing their hands with glee.

The earliest harvest in 15 years is already in full swing in the Champagne region with the first grapes picked in equally northerly Alsace on Tuesday, two weeks ahead of schedule.

With global sales of champagne alone likely to pass five billion euros ($5.8 billion) this year, government expert predicted Friday that the overall French harvest could be up by as much a quarter.

And with the quality of the grapes said to be high, a truly vintage year to match 2009 could be in the offing.

All the wine producing areas of the country except Corsica, Languedoc-Roussillon and the Riviera coast have reported more and better grapes compared to the last five years.

Winemakers, however, were quick to insist that they will not be celebrating until they have the grapes in the barrel.

“A lot can happen,” said Charles Bonnafont of the Peyres Roses winery at Cahuzac sur Vere near Gaillac in southwest France.

“Yes, it is looking very good. If we had a little rain now and than some more sunshine before the harvest it might be even more perfect,” he told AFP.

Other organic winemakers, however, have struggled to stay on top of the mildew even with the help of the heatwave. Laurent Herlin, from Bourgueil in the Loire valley, said even drought “did not totally stop the march of mildew”, which can eat away and wither bunches of grapes on the vine.

The French government agency FranceAgriMer said that mildew and violent spring storms had also hit the harvest along “the Atlantic coast and particularly along the Mediterranean”.