Down but not out: champagne production set to weather the storm

Maison Pommery & Associes SA

22/09/2016 17:45

By Sybille de La Hamaide and Johnny Cotton 
    ECUEIL, France, Sept 22 (Reuters) - Champagne makers will 
escape the harsh weather damage hitting other French wines this 
year thanks to an old tradition that allows them to blend new 
bubbly with reserves saved from past years. 
    The 2016 champagne harvest has been hammered by a 
combination of frost, rains and drought that is set to take 
output to its lowest for more than 30 years, down around 30 
percent from 2015, producers group CIVC told Reuters. 
    Yet makers actually plan to slightly raise the number of 
bottles produced to meet an expected increase in global demand 
for the premium sparkling wine in the coming three years, they 
said. 
    In the vineyards of Champagne, producer Nicolas Maillart's 
harvest was well under way this week with a team of seasonal 
pickers -- mostly from Spain and Portugal -- racing down the 
rows of vines snipping off bunches of grapes, some showing 
severe damage. 
    The crop experienced severe frosts in the spring, followed 
by heavy rainfall that led to severe attacks of mildew fungus. 
Then a heatwave in late August and early September scorched  
some of the remaining grapes, Maillart said. 
    "I have never known a year like this, and there has never 
been as much rain in Champagne in living memory," he said. 
    But the Champagne region, situated around 150 km (90 miles)  
northeast of Paris, has a long-standing system in place to cope 
with capricious weather. Wine makers are allowed to mix output 
from the last harvest with the best quality wines kept in 
reserve from prior vintages.  
    "This means that when the harvest is bad we can even improve 
quality," Richard Desvignes, producer of champagne 
Lacourte-Godbillon, said as he showed off large metal drums of 
vintage reserves. "We are extremely lucky." 
    Reserves, which can amount to 40 percent of a champagne 
bottle, are used both for risk management and to maintain the 
style and character of the wine from year to year. 
    "The impact of this year's poor harvest will be less 
negative than if we had not put quality reserves in place in the 
early '90s," Thierry Gasco, cellar master at Pommery  VRKP.PA , 
said during a tour of a section of his 18 km of cellars, carved 
out of the chalky soil of Reims. 
    The Champagne region produces about 300 million bottles a 
year and has more than 1 billion in stock. 
    "Champagne is a blended wine. We blend years, we blend grape 
varieties, we blend origins, villages, in champagne, so we are 
able to achieve resilience in champagne production in spite of 
hard years," CIVC head Vincent Perrin said. 
    Further south, in France's famous still-wine regions such as 
 Burgundy and Val-de-Loire, output is expected to fall by 21 and 
35 percent respectively, according to farm ministry data. 
    Producers there will not have Champagne's wiggle room if 
they want to carry the regional label.  
    Mixing vintages is strictly forbidden in other famous 
producing regions, which means the sharp fall in output will 
directly cut the number of bottles produced. 
 
 (Additional reporting by John Cotton; Editing by Mark 
Trevelyan) 
 ((Sybille.deLaHamaide@thomsonreuters.com; +331 4949 5145; 
Reuters Messaging: 
sybille.delahamaide.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net)) 
 
Keywords: FRANCE CHAMPAGNE/