Guest essay by Eric Worrall
A third of this year’s French wine crop has reportedly been lost to a late season frost. Wine growers resorted to burning fossil fuel to save their plants.
Third of French wine lost after rare cold snaps devastate vines
Unseasonal frost is ‘agricultural disaster of 21st century’ as ice after warm weather decimates grape harvests
Angelique Chrisafis in Paris
@achrisafis
Fri 16 Apr 2021 02.53 AESTAt least a third of French wine production worth almost €2bn (£1.7bn) in sales will be lost this year after rare freezing temperatures devastated many vines and fruit crops across France, raising concerns over the climate crisis.
“This is probably the greatest agricultural catastrophe of the beginning of the 21st century,” the French agriculture minister, Julien Denormandie, said this week as the government declared an “agricultural disaster” and began preparing emergency financial measures.
The unseasonal wave of bitter frost and ice hit suddenly after a bout of warm weather, which worsened the damage. The warmth had encouraged vines and fruit trees to develop earlier than usual, only to be withered by the sudden cold.
The national federation of agricultural holders’ unions told AFP it believes at least a third of French wine production would be lost as certain grape harvests in many of France’s best-known wine-producing regions risked being decimated.
…
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/food/2021/apr/15/agricultural-disaster-two-billion-worth-of-french-wine-production-lost-after-cold-snaps
President Macron tweeted a picture of farmers burning thousands of gallons of kerosene, to try to prevent global warming from killing more of their grapes. No news yet on whether President Macron will offer relief from French global warming taxes, on fossil fuel burned to hold back the intense cold.
Perhaps the coming shortage of 2021 season French wine is what the WMO was thinking about, when they said the impacts of the climate crisis are already too costly for the world to afford. Let us hope the world wakes up and addresses global warming, before we all freeze to death.
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“The growing season around France’s wine regions has started. Vines are back in business. In the Côte d’Or area of Burgundy, the buds are swelling, whilst in the early-developing zones (young vines, clos, field blends) they are reaching the green tip stage. “Currently, we are 10 to 12 days ahead of 2018 and 4 to 6 days behind the earliest years such as 2017, 2014 and 2012. Cool temperatures over the coming days should slow the pace”, wrote the chamber of agriculture in its first Vitiflash bulletin of the season, dated March 25.
In Jura, most Chardonnay and Poulsard vines have reached the woolly bud stage.
In Maine-et-Loire, vineyard plots range from bud swelling to green tip stages”
The article was written on April 1
https://www.vitisphere.com/news-89296-Frances-vine-growing-season-kicks-off-early.htm
It seems that bud burst in the first or second week of April is normal. Frosts in mid April is going to cause crop losses in most years. The warmth before bit is irrelevant but they had to throw it in.
Back in the day, a long, long time ago, in Southern California, we used to light up the smudge pots on freezing nights in the orange orchards. Talk about carbon pollution!
In the UK we get a TV channel France 24, an English speaking French TV news channel.
France 24 covered this cold weather event and the effect on French wine growers about a week ago.
The article ended with the prediction that due to Climate Change such events can be expected to increase in the future.
So don’t expect this event to change anyone’s mind.
Yes, getting cooler will certainly effect farmers.
Sitting here in western PA watching it snow. Damned globall warmining!
LIght snow falling today (April 21, 2021) in Ottawa, Canada. Below zero overnight expected again.
This is what you get when the jetstream shifts south, I guess. If we see this for 20 or 30 years, then I guess one could make the case that it might be climate and not weather. Until then… weather.
Is Zharkova more right than wrong? https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23328940.2020.1796243
“At least a third of French wine production worth almost €2bn (£1.7bn) in sales will be lost this year…”
Oh, mon Dieu!! Maintenant, que faisons-nous??????? Peut-etre Il n’y à pas de fromage aussi?
Just raises the price, that’s all.
I guess I will have to settle for a snooty little Tuscan red…. My life is going right down the tubes.
Pas de panique Sara! there’s still plenty dans la cave… 😉
As for the fromage, remember Charles de Gaulle once famously said “how can you govern a country that has 246 varieties of cheese”
Ah! Je suis content!
Here is is April 21, and there is a frost warning in northern NJ for tomorrow morning. Still running the furnace in the mornings.
Talk about unsustainable industry, they did not factor in short and medium run cycle impacts on the jet stream and ocean temps. They deserve what they get in the home of the Paris (photo op) Agreement.
Sorry, Eric, but obviously you have not been educated as to the latest theory being fronted by the AGM/CAGW alarmists:
The science is settled that global cooling is the direct result of global warming.
The first rule of grifters: Never give up the con.
Ah, no.
A) France has a number of wine growing zones. I doubt this frost injured grapes in every wine zone.
B) Growers prune grape vines during their dormant season to reduce excessive vegetative growth during the Spring-Summer season and to maximize berry size and flavor.
Doomist prognostications regarding the wine crop well before the size of the crop is identified provide examples of the logical fallacy “argumentum ad ignorantium: (appeal to ignorance)”. The doomists don’t know, yet they predict doom anyway. Mostly, because they are sure they will alarm some of the people all of the time.
Yes – but this must be great news for alcoholics anonymous. Though (speaking for a friend) this is dreadful news, even if exaggerated!
???
Alcoholics have a serious alcohol addiction; including many who have genetic tendencies towards addiction.
The sheer presence of wine may be detrimental towards an alcoholic’s remaining on the wagon. A slight reduction in one country or even a region’s wine crop will not allay that problem at all.
Prohibition uncovered the fallacy of believing that reducing or eliminating a legal source will prevent alcoholism, or any other addiction.
Back in HS, our Advanced Chemistry teacher challenged our class to form teams and find the most efficacious alcohol ferment and distillation.
While most alcoholics lack the patience to brew their own alcohols, all are quite good at maintaining their access to or supplies of alcohol.
I doubt they’ll even notice France’s possible wine losses.
You had one heck of a high school chemistry teacher!
All true, well said. We’ll have to wait till May for a final conclusion.
walked in the door at 00:20 this morning.
I did a milk run up on the NW side of Chicago. Stops in:
Batavia
Two stops in Elgin
Last in Northbrook.
On the way up I hit rain then heavy wet blowing snow just north of Lafayette, IN. That was about 11:15. I actually drove out of the snow before I got on I-94/I-80. And by the time I was heading up north on the west side it was just cloudy skies.
When I finished the last stop the trailer was full to the tailgate. If the last stop had not had some small skids (standard if 4′ x 4′) they would not have been able to get all their freight on.
On the way back from about 30 miles north of Lafayette there was snow on the ground. The then at the 119 MM came upon a back up for an accident. Sat for 25 minutes. Right after that it started snowing. And it snowed all the rest of the way home to Anderson, IN.
The roads were fine but lots of drivers were backing off. Not me! Hammer down, there was spray coming off the tires and no white on the road except a little on the overpasses, so go baby go. Passed one heck of a lot of vehicles.
After turning in the paperwork and dropping the trailer in the assigned door I drove to where my pickup truck was parked and started it so it would warm up while I fueled and did my post trip on the big truck.
Despite that I had to use my scrapper and brush to clear the glass and the hood of my pickup of snow. Well over 2″ of heavy wet snow on the hood of my pickup.
At home and it looked like a winter wonder land out there because that heavy wet snow sticks to the branches of the trees and covers the bushes. The snow burden was enough that two large branches on one of my willow trees fell.
When I got up at noon there was more green than white showing and now what was nearly 3″ of snow cover is practically gone.
Joe Bastardi got it right on the snow, but the snow line in the east was further south than he forecasted.
Emergency calls need to be made to John Kerry, Al Gore and Michael Mann ASAP, to deliver on promises on global warming.
Waves of Arctic air will continue to fall over the US.
“A third of this year’s French wine crop has reportedly been lost to a late season frost……raising concerns over the climate crisis.”(!)
We have a couple of inches of snow here in eastern Ontario over the past two days. These are the kind of headlines I remember from the 16th – to early 19th century. Didn’t George Washington and Benjamin Franklin have similar entries in their diaries?
Did you know that during the Revolutionary War, when the British occupied Manhattan, there was a stock of American cannons in a warehouse that Washington’s commandoes spirited out from under British noses by rolling them onto the frozen sea and thence to New Jersey where they were hauled ashore. Now that was the Arctic ice extent in those days. In Europe, even the Bosphorus in Turkey froze over.
I had predicted the early April negative NAO episode months previously. There are worse late frosts than that coming over the next few years.
The polar vortex will still be active in mid-May and will bring Arctic air to the eastern US.
ren
Why don’t you use your real name at Roy Spencer’s blog? It looks way better…
J.-P. D.
You certainly love to dox people.
Wine is an absolutely unnecessary product that damages the environment and the climate.
Developing a vineyard often involves the destruction of natural forestland or grassland. Growing grapes often requires irrigation with increasingly scarce water resources. And turning grape juice into wine through the CO2-emitting fermentation process can’t be a good thing. Nor is transporting wine in heavy glass bottles half way around the world.
Anyone concerned with the environment and climate–particularly Green New Deal people– should ditch the wine and switch to water right out of the faucet.
hudson
” Wine is an absolutely unnecessary product that damages the environment and the climate. ”
Wow! I am downright appalled by this severe judgment. Are you abstinent, hudson?
Do you know that the so-called water footprint – for Germany alone !!! – is for
and for
km³ per year?
How does it look like where you live?
And… I didn’t even mention the water footprints for beef and pork 🙂
J.-P. D.
Thanks. Good information. More wine, less bread.
hudson
Thanks in turn for the great answer.
But even better would be “More wine, more bread, more vegetables, more fish, less beef, less pork”.
J.-P. D.
If I were you, I would stop whining about these poor French wines, and rather have a look at what could be far more devastating in the US:
It seems to me that these recent stratospheric events have much more impact in the US than in Europe, Russia and Siberia.
J.-P. D.
In 2009 or 2010 ( the year of snowmaggaden for the mid Atlantic), Bastardi predicted 2011,2012 and 2013 would see a cooling trend, (remember the pause reported in those days), It turned out those winters were pretty cold a la Snowball England etc. He based his prediction on Arctic ice in and ice out dates with an eye toward the cooling impact of the deep solar minimum of the 23rd cycle, (2007-2009). Since then we have had a fairly weak Maximum (24th cycle), and another deep minimum similar to the minimum of the 24th cycle and we are now about 10 months into the 25th cycle. Now if the pattern repeats itself, we may begin to see some cooling in the North Hemisphere similar to 2011-2013. I wonder if there is a relationship between Solar Min/Max and grape yield and brix readings. Wine snob yap about vintages is worthless info. It’s April 22,2032 in PA at 1,000 feet, it’s bright and sunny with 40 MPG gusts at 39 F. The hard freeze this morning (27F) probably wiped out my cherries, peaches and apricots. We shall see. Last Spring a hard freeze on 5/4/2020 wiped out all my apples, grapes, peaches, cherries. T
Well…of course global warming will cause colder temperatures…makes total sense to me and my friends Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.
Just a few incidental facts:
But of course it is climate change that gets the blame. And since France has been overproducing, underproduction will not add to the glut from previous years of overproduction and unsold wine because of the current restrictions.
So… it’s an ill wind.
And the wine producers whine (sorry couldn’t resist) every year about something because they know if they whine loud enough the Government shovels money at them.