Hail sends 8m bottles of bubbly down the drain

Violent storms wipe out equivalent of £110m worth of wine grapes in the Champagne region

CHAMPAGNE has become the latest French wine growing region to feel the wrath of the heavens after hail storms wiped out the equivalent of eight million bottles of fizz, worth £110million.

The extent of the damage emerged barely a week after hailstones “the size of pigeons’ eggs” devastated thousands of acres of prime vineyards in Bordeaux, prompting the government to pledge support for winegrowers, some of whom have lost their entire crop.

The north-eastern Champagne region was struck by four particularly heavy hailstorms in late April and May, just as the vines were beginning to flower. The latest struck on Sunday, and more violent storms were forecast overnight.

“So far 1,800 hectares have been damaged, of which 1,000 have been 100 per cent destroyed, representing three per cent of the total cham pag negro wing area,” said the industry’s Champagne committee.

“Of course, storm and hail are not unusual phenomena in Champagne, but what is rare is to see them at this very early stage and with this level of violence,” said Thibaut Le Mailloux, the committee communications director. “Three per cent of the potential future harvest vanished before our eyes,” he told The Daily Telegraph.

“And it happened at a very bad time, as the vines are only starting to flower this week. Of course, flowers are more fragile than fruit or buds.”

Thanks to the region’s unique “reserve” system, which allows Champagne producers to mix new product with stocks from previous years, the weather damage is not expected to result in shortages for the customer. Nor will there be any effect on quality.

However, some growers would suffer economically, said Mr Le Mailloux.

“La Côte des Bars in southern Champagne was already affected by spring frost last year and the previous year, so some growers may not have enough wine in stock to compensate for this hail destruction. It, of course, means a loss of revenue,” he said.

Champagne growers believe that the early violent hail storms were a “warning or sign of the type of climate events that we are likely to experience more and more in the coming years”. Mr Le Mailloux said: “Climate change isn’t about regular temperature rise but more chaotic climate because it is so violent and at such an unusual period.”

Champagne insists it has been a pioneer in sustainable development and it was the first wine region in France to assess its carbon footprint in the early 2000s. The renowned sparkling wine region has also launched a 25-year research programme to find grape varieties more resistant to higher temperatures without changing the flavour of the drink.

But Mr Le Mailloux confessed that it was almost powerless against hailstorms. Solutions such as firing rockets to destroy hail inside clouds with aluminium particles had “not proven to be scientifically effective”.