SW winegrowers escape worst of frost damage
WESTCOUNTRY wine producers look to have been reprieved from the frost damage which has obliterated France’s vineyards. At least a third of French wine production, worth almost £1.7bn in sales, is predicted to be lost this year as freezing conditions have obliterated the tender buds of the grapevines.
The deep frosts have destroyed crops in the legendary vineyards of Bordeaux, Burgundy, the Languedoc and the Rhône valley with predictions that grape harvests in many of France’s best-known wineproducing regions risked being decimated. Growers of kiwis, apricots, apples and other fruit have also been hit.
Despite also seeing late frosts in the UK, wine producers in the South West look to have escaped the damage as the growing cycle of UK vines is a few weeks behind their European counterparts, meaning the fragile early growth killed off by French frosts has not yet emerged. Sam Lindo, winemaker at Camel Valley Vineyard in North Cornwall, said frosts were actually the least of the problems faced by UK wine producers.
He said: “Although we have had frost we are at least two weeks behind France. While it is warmer earlier in Europe to bring on the vines, the frosts are far more extreme when they come.”
Mr Lindo said wine producers in the UK faced a different set of problems weather-wise.
“Frost is generally the least of our worries,” he said. “Our problems tend to arrive during the flowering season; if we have a lot of rain and no sun in June and July, we’ll have a terrible harvest.”
He added: “The last year has seen an unprecedented demand for wine so we are desperate to have a good year.
“The problems in France are putting more pressure on us rather than actually making things better.”
Mr Lindo said he had huge sympathy for French wine producers, who have asked for state help to get them through the crisis.
French agriculture minister, Julien Denormandie, has declared an “agricultural disaster” and begun preparing emergency financial measures.
He said: “This is probably the greatest agricultural catastrophe of the beginning of the 21st century.”
Wine-makers had battled over several nights to try to save vineyards, attempting to heat up fields by lighting thousands of small fires and candles near vines and trees. This created the extraordinary spectacle of the night sky lit by rows of flames between vines.
President Emmanuel Macron tweeted a picture of vineyards lit by candles, expressing support for farmers whom he said were fighting “night after night” to protect crops.