Bordeaux vineyards devastated by hailstorms

Heartbreaking news has emerged from the Bordeaux wine region: violent hailstorms have ravaged hundreds of vineyards.

Thousands of hectares of vines have been destroyed, with some winemakers losing 100% of their harvest.

The hail first hit the south of the region on Saturday at midday, affecting the Pessac-Leognan region and the south of Medoc, home to some of the region’s most famous chateaux, Bernard Farges, head of Bordeaux producers’ union CIVB, said. 

It then devastated vineyards of Cotes de Bourg and Cotes de Blaye on the right bank of the Gironde river and, further east, in the Gensac and Pessac-sur-Dordogne. 

The vineyard of Cognac was also hit by hail.

“The figures...which will have to be refined, show that between 500 and more than 1000 wine growers have been affected with a area hit of 1000 hectares in the Medoc, between 4,000 and 5,000 hectares for Cote de Blaye and Cote de Bourg and about 1,000 hectares in the vicinity of Gensac”, Farges told Reuters. 

"It's a shock, it was a hailstorm of unprecedented violence for 10 minutes," the head of a winegrowers association in the Cotes-de-Bourg area, Didier Gontier, told Franceinfo radio.

He said that an area of around 2000 hectares had been affected, which could bankrupt some growers, particularly those already affected by a late frost last year.

Franck Jullion, the president of the Blaye Côtes de Bordeaux appellation, said his vines, which were expected to flower next week, had been destroyed.

“It’s a scene of desolation … it’s finished for this year. On a human level it’s going to be very hard. Some properties were already hit by the frost and won’t recover,” Jullion said.

Didier Gontier said he was visiting vineyards to assess the damage.

“Not only have we lost the next harvest, but the hail was so violent, growers are telling us there’s no wood left for next year. This will hit us for two years. Some were already victims of the frost in 2017. These are hard blows for us,” Gontier told the Sud Ouest newspaper.

Cyril Giresse, a winegrower, said hailstones “the size of pigeons’ eggs” destroyed grape buds and left vines bare on Saturday.

“The storm lasted only about 15 minutes, but in some places, there’s nothing left at all,” said Giresse, who runs the Château Gravettes Samonac in Bordeaux’s Côtes de Bourg appellation. “No leaves, no grapes, just the vines stripped as if the grapes had all been picked.”

Jean-Dominique Château, a claret producer, said: “I’ve got nothing left. I’ve been growing grapes for 33 years and this is the worst storm I’ve ever seen. Last year we lost 40% of our crop to hail but this year it’s going to be an even worse disaster.”

The news comes just a year after the Bordeaux region suffered one of its worst harvests in history with a drop of 39% due to late frosts. 

French vignerons used candles, heaters and the down-draught from helicopters to try to save their crops from frost in late April, when vineyards reported temperatures plunging to below -7C in some regions hurting shoots that were already well-developed because of earlier mild weather.

Meanwhile, 2016 was regarded as France's worst harvest since 1945, with heavy rain, hailstones "as big as ping pong balls", mildew and drought near the Mediterranean. There was also a below average harvest in 2015 due to hot weather.