Copa and Cogeca, the farming and agri-cooperative organisations in the EU, gave a warning on Thursday 11 May of the harm caused by the cold spell and frost to vineyards in many member states.
At the Copa and Cogeca wine working party meeting, many members, notably from the big wine producing countries – France, Spain, Italy and Germany – complained of poor weather conditions in their countries, especially frost, which is expected to have a significant impact on this year’s wine harvest.
Thierry Coste, chairman of the working party, said that France had been badly hit by frost in April and that there was a risk of further damage in May. At this stage, it is impossible to give precise figures on estimated harvest losses but the worst affected areas are already known: Alsace, Champagne, Languedoc-Roussillon and the Rhone Valley, the Loire Valley and the Bordeaux regions. Italian vineyards also suffered from bad weather in April, with late spring frost in Tuscany and some winegrowers in the Chianti areas losing up to 90% of production. In Spain, almost 18,000 hectares of grape production in Castilla y León, Rioja, Galicia and Navarra, Aragon and Catalonia have been hit by the frost.
Vineyards in the Czech Republic have also been damaged by frost (15-20% yield reduction in Southern Moravia). The frost and cold have also affected vineyards in Austria, the Netherlands, Germany, Slovenia, Croatia and Hungary. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)