French wine production down by a fifth after September washout

France is facing one of its worst wine harvests in memory after the rainiest September in 25 years led to significant crop reductions in celebrated regions like Champagne, Burgundy, and Beaujolais.
A reduced forecast of 37.5 million hectolitres — a hectolitre being equivalent to 133 standard wine bottles — is in line with the poor 2021 vintage that was marked by frost damage. It is 22 per cent below last year’s crop, 15 per cent below the five-year average and among one of the smallest harvests of the past hundred years.
“This drop is due to unfavourable weather conditions which impacted all wine-growing areas,” the agriculture ministry said in a monthly report.
All types of wine were affected, it said, but particularly those from Burgundy, Beaujolais and Champagne. The Champagne crop would be down by a third from last year and 14 per cent below the five-year average, while Burgundy and Beaujolais would be down 35 per cent.
The ministry said many vines had flowered in cool and humid weather, causing millerandage and coulure, conditions in which grapes are small, or young grapes and flowers drop off the vine. These problems have been further aggravated by spells of cold and damp weather during the flowering stage, which provided fertile ground for downy mildew, wreaking havoc across many of France’s key wine regions.
As a result of the September rain, the harvest in the world’s second-largest wine-producing nation was brought forward in some regions to limit health risks and additional losses. It is unclear how the fall in output would affect the overall price of wine. Big chateaux tend to lift the price of their scarce vintages but France has been suffering from strengthening competition on world markets.
Unfortunately for the UK’s upstart winemakers across the Channel, the soggy start to summer British vineyards leaves them unlikely to be able to seize the advantage this year.
Many domestic winemakers have also warned of a slow harvest this year, with Gusbourne in Kent, which is two-thirds owned by the Conservative peer Lord Ashcroft, expecting a harvest of “high-quality but reduced yield compared to last year’s record 2023 vintage”.
French growers are nevertheless hedging their bets on northward shift for better grape-growing climate: Champagne Taittinger, one of France’s best-known houses, last month opened a £15 million winery called Domaine Evremond in Chilham, Kent.