Storms ravage parts of Burgundy today
Vintage 2013 has been a wet one with flooding across many European wine regions. Today, however, a particularly severe storm dumped hail and lots of rain on parts of Burgundy.
Caroline Parent Gros, who makes wine in the region, tweeted “So far, what we see in the vineyards of Pommard, Beaune & Savigny is, at least, 75% loss. # Burgundy #Storm”
Nicolas Rossignol, a vigneron in Volnay, has been posting some heart-wrenching photos to his Facebook page, including the one above.
France 3 also reported on the storms. Very sad news. We wish all the vignerons well. More photos after the jump.
Photo: hail on the ground by Domaine Nicolas Rossignol
Photo: shattered grapes by Caroline Parent Gros
Jul
23
2013
On July 23rd, 2013 at 4:16 pm ,Jack Bulkin wrote:
We will never know in our lifetimes whether these sad weather events are related to the recent warming of the World. Many of the “World is flat anti global climate change believers” in the wine crowd are Burg Lovers. Will these events only stiffen their resolve that the weather is not a human caused catastrophy?
On July 23rd, 2013 at 4:24 pm ,Dr. Vino wrote:
Jack – yes, there are so many extreme weather events these days it’s difficult to simply live in some places, let a lone try to make your business around the weather via agriculture.
Funny you should say that that climate change deniers like Burgundy. Do you really think there’s a taste preference/regional rift that correlates with the issue of global warming? I would have thought they deniers would be spread across all types of wine evenly or even skew toward higher alcohol expressions, since that is what current trends climatological trends will provide in abundance.
On July 23rd, 2013 at 4:53 pm ,Jack Bulkin wrote:
Tyler, without naming names, the most aggressively anti climate change posters during my old Wine Board experiences were all Burg guys.
On July 23rd, 2013 at 6:08 pm ,Blake Gray wrote:
I think this is a straw man. But nonetheless, I have to say no one data point on rain proves or disproves global warming. Why would flooding change somebody’s mind?
That said, I find it hard to believe that any serious enophile could doubt global warming today. Vineyard managers all over the world talk about it. I wouldn’t bother arguing with climate change deniers who drink wine; I would just tell them to ask their favorite wineries what they think.
On July 23rd, 2013 at 9:20 pm ,Phil Sandifer wrote:
And yet there are still, at least in American wineries, plenty of right-leaning small business types who back candidates who deny climate change and exacerbate the problem. Pointing this out remains important – the increase of extreme weather events is part of what will help convince people who have been misled badly about the science.
On July 24th, 2013 at 8:00 am ,Terroirist: A Daily Wine Blog » Daily Wine News: Severe Storm wrote:
[…] Yesterday, Tyler Colman reports, “a particularly severe storm dumped hail and lots of rain on parts of Burgundy.” Wine-Searcher has more. […]
On July 24th, 2013 at 8:56 am ,Bill Bendelow wrote:
That the weather is changing is undeniable. What certain people plan to do about it is another issue. Giving a small group of people legal ability to take money away from the rest of the world in return for their fuel usage will certainly not hurt the corporate-capitalist sources of greenhouse gasses. Your average middle-class-and-lower human will be penalized while the people pumping the most emissions will pay the taxes as a matter of business expenses (like banks paying fines for cheating) , and the most connected will just get funding thru the political process to offset the taxes (if they pay them). Uncle Sam’s budget goes up every single year for a lot of things and while a number of American Government services are much better than that of other nations, are they getting better at everything? So many sectors of the budget are outta control Black Holes sucking more and more money out of the whole economy, and usually it just gets funneled to people that don’t deserve it. Would making Al Gore richer (he’s already more wealthy than Romney after his recent sale to Quatar) save the planet? Methane from cows and other ruminants (sheep and goats, etc) has 23 times as much to global warming potential as CO2 (according to the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, using the formula brought out by the Kyoto Protocol) which is more than the entire human transportation sector burning fossil fuels. So why do we hear about “carbon taxes” on all this burning of fossil fuels when it’s livestock that has such an impact? I’d love to see us find an alternative to burning Dead Dinosaur juice (and certainly the ff industry has kept alternatives from coming out) but what other affordable alternatives are there right now for most humans? The people barking the loudest in government for carbon taxes are the ones waiting to make money from the diverting of said funds. All that being said, I most certainly wish if hail had to be damaging vineyards somewhere on Earth, I sure wish it was somewhere other than Burgundy 🙁
On July 24th, 2013 at 10:13 am ,Dr. Vino wrote:
It appears the storms were localized. Here’s a tweet from Jeremy Seysses today:
RT @JeremySeysses:Poor Volnay-Pommard-Beaune-Savigny-Corton! All still fine in Côte de Nuits. Less than 2mm rain in Morey last night. http://pic.twitter.com/aG5jVWcr3c
So sad. Hoping vintage 2013 is still salvageable for those in the Cote de Beaune.
On July 24th, 2013 at 11:51 am ,Jeremy wrote:
From my experience, Burgundy lovers are definitely the most intelligent of the various wine region aficionados and tend to border on liberal most of the time. If I were to presume which group would be the most anti-climate change believers, it would have to be douche bag Wall street types who only drink Napa Cab and Brunello, but that’s me. In any event, such sad news. God dammit
On July 24th, 2013 at 1:23 pm ,Matt wrote:
Unfortunately the background makes this unreadable and I’m very interested.
On July 24th, 2013 at 1:52 pm ,Dr. Vino wrote:
Matt – did you try reloading the page? Usually that only happens with slow internet speeds. Sorry you experienced technical difficulties.
On July 24th, 2013 at 4:44 pm ,Andrea wrote:
While I appreciated Bill’s take, the ultimate conclusion is that we cannot support 6+ billion people with our current rate of consumption. Either WE reduce OUR population, or Mother Nature will do it for us. We cannot have it both ways. 2+ billion people would drive far fewer cars and raise far less livestock. Burgundy would go farther! My heart breaks for the farmers, more than for the lost wine itself. As one who has served thousands of bottles over the past 35 years, I make it a point to never be curious as to the political persuasion of the guest…as long as folks are enjoying a nice bottle, that’s all that matters to me.
On July 24th, 2013 at 4:56 pm ,Jack Bulkin wrote:
Large Oil Conglomerates are salvating at the prospect of melting artic ice from the perma-frost caused by the Earths increasing temperatures and their access to new oil and gas deposit sitting under those newly melted waters. The real cost to the industrial World by a methane release from those melting waters is unfathonomable. Much more than the partial loss of a Burgundy Vintage. Believe in Climate change or not this may be what we are facing.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-23432769
On July 25th, 2013 at 1:44 pm ,Bill Haydon wrote:
I agree that the most conservative (and most likely to deny climate change)wine drinkers are the suburban country club types who drink almost exclusively big, overblown Napa Cab and Chard.
On July 25th, 2013 at 5:25 pm ,Jack Bulkin wrote:
Country Club Republicns drink whatever swill is on their elitist Club’s wine list. Those clubs don’t carry Burgundy or high end Bordeaux. I am referring to wine lovers who post on the known wine boards. Amongst that club some if not many being Republican elitists, love Burgundy.
On July 30th, 2013 at 1:02 am ,A double whammy for French wine production | The Horse's Mouth wrote:
[…] Dr Vino – Storms ravage parts of Burgundy […]