This summer’s heatwaves have been a disaster for French winemakers who are bracing themselves for a 30-year low in production, with Champagne output set to halve.
Following the country’s hottest ever recorded summer, the agriculture ministry says vineyards will produce just under 34m hectolitres from this year’s harvest: a drop of six per cent on last year, and 17 per cent less than the 2021-2025 average.
Agreste, the government’s farming, food, forestry, and fishing statistics agency, said the drop was mainly due to extreme weather conditions, intensified by human-induced climate change.
‘The summer was particularly hot and dry: soil drought has intensified throughout the country and heatwaves have caused localised sun scald, scorching, defoliation, and wilting of the grapes, reducing harvest volumes,’ it stated.
The forecast comes after an optimistic start to the year, with heavy spring rains that encouraged grape growth. However later heatwaves brought the highest summer temperatures recorded in France since records began in 1900, with averages of 24C in June, July and August.
Champagne is expected to record one of the steepest declines, with production forecast at almost half last year’s level after harvesting began unusually early in mid-August. The eastern Jura region could see volumes fall by 37 per cent, while output across Burgundy-Beaujolais is predicted to drop by around a third.
Bordeaux, Languedoc-Roussillon and vineyards across France’s south-east and south-west are anticipating larger harvests than last year. Even so, production remains below the 2021–2025 average in every major wine region except Savoie.
Wine harvests have traditionally taken place in France between September and mid October, but the climate emergency has brought dates forward slightly each year for the last four decades. This year, the harvest timetable advanced at least a week compared with last year throughout the country.
There are also concerns that vines and grapes in some of France’s best-known wine-producing regions, including Bordeaux, have been damaged by smoke from rampant wildfires, polluting the grape skins, causing ‘smoke taint’ and affecting the taste of the finished wine.
France last week announced more than one billion euros in emergency support for farmers, but agricultural groups said the package fell short of needs.
The shrinking harvest comes at an already difficult time for France’s wine industry. Annual consumption among French drinkers has fallen from around 127 litres per person in the 1960s to approximately 40 litres today.
Demand is also weakening in the US, France’s largest export market, where producers face additional pressure from tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump.
