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Winegrowers in Bordeaux are looking for new strategies to reduce the dangers of the increasingly frequent late spring frosts. In the past seven years, Bordeaux vineyards have experienced three major frost episodes: 2017, 2019 and 2022, in addition to the 2020 and 2021 vintages, when frost damage was less severe but still caused anxiety among producers. The phenomenon, which was difficult to predict, cost many farms a significant portion of the harvest in some years. The average yield of the winegrowers had dropped noticeably. The reasons are known, but so far there are no sufficient possibilities to work preventively, reports La revue du vin de France.
"The blame lies with the desynchronisation of the climate and the vegetation cycle of the vines, milder winters and earlier budding," explains Annabel Garçon, viticultural advisor at the Gironde Departmental Chamber of Agriculture, who is responsible for frost support. For her, there is an active and a passive approach to combating the problem. The majority of producers are already postponing pruning, as well as soil cultivation and other work in the vineyard, in order to gain a few days against the frost. This strategy of "passive struggle" is practised on a massive scale. "But it only works during frosts in the first half of April," warns winemaker Jean-Sébastien Capdevielle of Château L'Evêché in Saint-Emilion.
There is a lack of an overall strategy for the region, every winegrower has his own ideas, says Annabel Garçon. Possibilities include frost protection wind turbines, candles and heating cables in the vineyards. However, these are expensive and have an impact on the environment. Only the top farms have already invested in such techniques. It is also questionable whether local residents would accept the noise and pollution from these installations. "We will not be able to heat 100,000 hectares of vineyards every year while there is no longer any right to heat the terraces in Paris," warns winemaker Jean-Christophe Mau of Château Brown.
In this context, winemakers look with hope to protective equipment that is still banned, especially sails. "They work and have no impact on the environment," argues Jean-Sébastien Capdevielle. But the French "Institut National de l'Origine et de la qualité" INAO (National Institute for Origin and Quality) fears considerable effects on the terroir and so far opposes them.
(ru / Source: La revue du vin de France)