Less than 10 kilometers (6 miles) to the south, just below the historic town of Saint-Emilion, others were facing greater losses. Unlike Gazin, on the region's plateau, Chateau Canon La Gaffeliere sits on low-lying ground near a railway line and was more vulnerable to pockets of freezing air forming below the slopes. More than 70 per cent of the vines in the estate were damaged, according to Magali Malet-Serres, who works at the winery.
Some other Bordeaux chateaus say they lost almost everything. Other regions suffered less but this is the second straight year of deep freezes for Burgundy, where the regional wine board said Friday in a statement that 3,000 hectares (7,400 acres) of vineyard out of a total of 28,500 hectares was affected.
While global warming has generally led to earlier harvests and riper grapes, cold weather remains an annual threat in France. This year the risk was acute because of an early spring that caused vines to bud just as wintry weather returned. Vintners can buy frost insurance, but few do because it's expensive and of little value for prestigious producers as it covers only the value of the grapes lost, not the full amount of the bottled wine. Growers are generally not eligible for disaster relief, the Agriculture Ministry said.
Frost affected as much as 60 per cent of the Bordeaux wine-growing areas and will cut volume of the 2017 vintage by as much as 40 per cent, according to the Bordeaux wine federation FGVB. That means at least 1b euros in lost production from that region alone, out of normal annual revenue of 3.5b to 4beuros, the organization said.
Bordeaux vintners were quick to note that great years like 1945 and 1961 were also hit by frost, with the surviving grapes ripening to perfection. The prospect of tighter supply could fuel demand for the region's lauded 2016 vintage, just as the annual "en primeur" sale of futures gets under way.
In Champagne, as much as one-quarter of vines owned by the region's 15,000 growers might be damaged, according to the industry's trade body in the UK. Because most Champagne is a blend of vintages, houses such as Laurent Perrier and LVMH-owned Moet & Chandon can tap into the equivalent of 200 million bottles kept in reserve tanks, along with a further 1.3 billion bottles aging in cellars. Producers say that will tide them over for now, but if the run of bad luck continues next year, shortages will appear.
"It's a frost like we haven't seen since 1991," said Paul-Francois Vranken, chief executive officer of Vranken-Pommery Monopole. "We're worried."
Champagne has already been hit by a 14 per cent drop in exports to the UK last year. Sales in Britain, the region's largest overseas market by volume, have suffered from the plunge in the pound since the vote to leave the European Union last June.
While France was most affected, April's frost damage spread across much of wine-producing Europe, damaging the vineyards that produce riesling in Germany, sparkling wine in southern England and Prosecco in northern Italy. Some Mediterranean regions were spared, though the cold also killed off apples, cherries and other crops.
In France's Burgundy, growers were well-organized after a deep frost last year. This time around, when the forecasts predicted another freeze, they arranged a text-message chain and delivered hay bales to strategic spots. Beaune-based grower and merchant Alex Gambal woke at 5 a.m. on April 29 to clear skies and plunging temperatures. By 6:45 a.m., he said, bonfires created a purple haze across the vineyards.
"It was all hands on deck," Gambal said. "Some of the old-timers compared it to 1957 and 1981. But a lot of them said they had never seen anything like it."
- Bloomberg
