Champagne harvest decimated by fungus triggered by heavy rain

ABOUT 20 to 25 per cent of the Champagne vineyard has been damaged by mildew fungus due to heavy rainfall earlier this month, adding to severe losses caused by frosts earlier in the season, the drink’s industry lobby CIVC said on Tuesday.

In total, half of the harvest will be lost, Maxime Toubart, the CIVC deputy chairman told Reuters, although there should be no impact on supply to the market thanks to reserves of previous output.

Torrential rain hit western Europe in mid-july, causing deadly flooding in Germany and Belgium and raising concern about quality and quantity damages to several farm products, including cereals.

“It’s terrible, we got too much rain just at a time when we needed hot and dry weather,” said Mr Toubart, a producer himself.

Fungus attacks lead the grapes and leaves to dry up. In some places the whole parcel has been ravaged, Mr Toubart added.

“A loss of 20 to 25 per cent on 35,000 hectares is huge. The older generations say they have never seen anything like this.”

Severe frost over the winter had already damaged 30 per cent of the production.

“But we are quite serene because we have a reserve, meaning that at the end there should be no impact on the number of bottles available,” Mr Toubart said.

Champagne is most often a mixture of several vintages. Winegrowers can keep a reserve of past years’ output that can be used when there is a drop in output or extra demand that had not been anticipated.

“Of course we are disappointed by what is happening but the good news is that it will not impact the industry’s economy at all.

“Clients will find their bottles of champagne and there will be no spike in prices,” Mr Toubart said.