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The Bordelais region's agricultural department has set up a telephone hotline to help"traumatised" winegrowers cope with the devastating effects of the second wave of powdery mildew infestation. As Nicolas Morain of the local department said, there were calls from winegrowers, some in tears, who were really in distress. Some winegrowers had already questioned their work, he said. The situation is "traumatic. We have never seen anything like it - mildew has spared no one this year," he said. Some winegrowers had already lost their entire harvest. Allan Sichel, president of the Conseil Interprofessionnel du Vin de Bordeaux (CIVB), also fears that mildew means that winegrowers can "lose complete control" despite all their hard work. Some of the hotline staff are social workers, he said, and would also arrange for professional help from psychologists.
The second mildew attack this year hit Bordeaux in the last week of June after considerable rainfall in warm weather and no wind. Merlot has been particularly affected so far. Olivier Bernard, director of Domaine de Chevalier, said as early as June 2022 that winemakers would have to rethink their grape mix to continue producing balanced wines if temperatures continued to rise. Merlot was great at a time when grape ripeness was not the norm in Bordeaux, he said. But 60 to 70 per cent Merlot is too much in a warm terroir because it ripens earlier than Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc, for example, Bernard explained.
Similar to southern France, downy mildew is also causing massive problems for winegrowers in Italy. The winegrowers' association Unione Italiana Vini(UIV) expects damages totalling about 40 per cent. Especially in the regions of Apulia, Abruzzo and Molise, but also in Basilicata, Umbria, Lazio and Tuscany, the vines are severely affected. The unusually heavy and recurring rains in May and June were to blame for the massive infestation.
(al / source: drinksbusiness)