Letter from Rhône Matt Walls
From the hillside hideaway of Gigondas you can look down across a sea of lime-green vines all the way to Cairanne. It’s the end of May and flowering has begun; a precarious moment, but the forecast is good. Cellars, however, are eerily quiet. ‘From 15 March to now, our private domaines have been at a standstill,’ says Pierre Saysset, director of the Fédération des Vignerons Indépendants for the Rhône. ‘Turnover for March is down 50%, for April it’s down 72%, and it’s probably the same or even worse for May.’
The Covid-19 pandemic has claimed the lives of countless people in France as it has around the world, and Saysset believes it will also spell the end for many wine estates.
Hotels, restaurants and cafés have been closed for months and, with so many annual events cancelled, the vital tourist season is looking quiet at best. Consumer events are also a big source of revenue for independent wine estates, but the diary is empty.
‘For the first 15 days of lockdown there were no orders, no sales, nothing,’ says
Mélina Monteillet of Domaine de Montine in Grignan-les-Adhémar. With half their wines sold direct from the cellar door every year, 2020 is looking lean. ‘We need to tighten our belts,’ she says, ‘but the storm will pass.’ Thankfully, local wine shops have remained open, offering a lifeline.
Local wine merchants have been just as vital for Julien Cécillon in Crozes-Hermitage, as some have been focusing specifically on small domaines to support them. ‘We have a network full of humanity,’ he says; ‘they’ve made an effort to help us out.’ They have continued to export to the UK and the US, the two biggest markets for Rhône wines. But whether it’s Brexit or 25% tariffs, neither market offers the certainty it once did.
Nicole Rolet of Chêne Bleu near Ventoux says ‘we’re hanging in there’, largely thanks to exports. She’s making good use of her contacts to help her neighbours; as chair of fine wine research institute ARENI, she’s put together online round-tables to address the most urgent questions and provide food for thought. ‘If we pool our resources and energies, we can certainly pull through better than if we try to do this alone,’ she says.
With activity in the vineyards ramping up, outgoings remain the same. Domaines need to treat the vines, to fuel the tractors, to pay the staff. Finding seasonal workers is proving harder than ever, and all of these challenges come after a bad frost at the end of March. It was particularly severe in the southern Rhône. Rodolphe des Pins of leading Lirac estate Château de Montfaucon reports losses of up to 40% of his 2020 crop.
Robust reds and whites such as Lirac and Châteauneuf-du-Pape easily last several years in bottle – the stock will sell eventually. But if you produce large amounts of rosé for early drinking, the situation is alarming. And for vignerons who make wine but don’t bottle it themselves, instead selling to négociants? Négociants can adapt to a changing market, but for those with thousands of litres of the 2019s in their tanks, who will they sell it to now? And they’ll need those same tanks to house their 2020 vintage: the clock is ticking. ‘We fear that wine prices will collapse, which would add a crisis to the crisis,’ says Saysset.
The Rhône has been hit hard by the pandemic. It’s not just their belts that will have to tighten this year of course; all of ours will. And that’s one reason it’s also well placed to recover. I’m still uncovering wines all the time that deliver real character and enormous pleasure for less than €10 a bottle. If there was ever a time to support your favourite small wineries, now is that time.
Lockdown has eased now, and we’re finally allowed some freedom of movement in France. As I walk through the decorative back streets and endless vibrant green vineyards of Gigondas, it’s almost hard to believe there’s a crisis – the sun is shining, the birds are singing, the vines are growing. And where there is growth, there is hope.
DMatt Walls is a contributing editor to Decanter and the DWWA Regional Chair for the Rhône
‘We fear wine prices will collapse, which would add a crisis to the crisis’
Domaine Laurent Habrard, Valérie CrozesHermitage 2016 biodynamically grown rouge is a wine you could never tire of. It exhales iodine, bottled ink, cherry stones and blackberries, and offers a close-knit textural warp and weave. Fine, light and effortless, but with such character.