The summer has been nice and warm in France, not least in the wine regions. So the harvest is early this year. In Languedoc they picked the first grapes already on the 7th of August. In Champagne, the harvest will probably start on September 7. The French Ministry of Agriculture estimates that the grape harvest this year will be around 46 million hectolitres. This is a small increase compared with the average for the past five years. Some wine regions in the eastern part of the country though will be well below a normal harvest because of hot and dry weather.
In Burgundy and Alsace, for instance, the vines have suffered from lack of water. Beaujolais is expected to have a yield of only 30 hectolitres per hectare. The Champagne harvest will probably be down by 11% compared to last year if they pick the estimated 2.6 million hectolitres. Bordeaux, however, is probably going to make a pretty normal harvest at 5.6 million hectolitres. Also Languedoc-Roussillon is doing well both for quantity and quality and is expected to harvest around 13 million hectolitres, an increase of 6% compared to 2014. Read more about the French wine harvest 2015: lavigne-mag.fr
