Clos Chossay: minor hail damageAlthough the summer of 2009 so far has been considerably more promising, than 2007 and 2008 especially for those who have recently invested in swimming pools, it has been characterised by some heavy rain often as storms with hail. Parts of Menetou-Salon were severely hit twice in May.
Here is a brief report from Mark Robertson, gentleman-rocker of Epeigné-les-Bois and who has the commune's only 'grand-cru' vineyard:
'Don’t know if you were aware but we had quite a storm the night of 16th/17th July. There was some hail, which caused slight damage to the vines of Chossay and it’s neighbours (around 1% to 2% of grapes sustained damage). Les Doumees apparently bore the brunt of the hail in Epeigne with up to 50% of crops wiped out. I’m not aware of any structural damage or whether there was hail damage in other vineyard areas in the region. Charente and Charente-Maritime apparently suffered 60% destruction over 1,500 hectares.
Here is a brief report from Mark Robertson, gentleman-rocker of Epeigné-les-Bois and who has the commune's only 'grand-cru' vineyard:
'Don’t know if you were aware but we had quite a storm the night of 16th/17th July. There was some hail, which caused slight damage to the vines of Chossay and it’s neighbours (around 1% to 2% of grapes sustained damage). Les Doumees apparently bore the brunt of the hail in Epeigne with up to 50% of crops wiped out. I’m not aware of any structural damage or whether there was hail damage in other vineyard areas in the region. Charente and Charente-Maritime apparently suffered 60% destruction over 1,500 hectares.
More storms are forecast for tomorrow evening.'
Unfortunately Meteo-France is also forecasting storms in Indre-et-Loire on Thursday evening. Fortunately although the effects of hail can be devastating it tends to be localised – generally far more than frost.
4 comments:
Update on the hail of 16/17 July. Locally the area of vines towards J C Legrand's cave in St-Georges-sur-Cher have been pretty wiped out. We drove past last week and there doesn't seem to be a bunch of grapes left that isn't ripped to shreds. Jean-Claude has lost 2-3 hectares plus 5 hectares of wheat. According to the Anelfa website there was damage to 50/60% of the vines in Thesee and Monthou-sur-Cher and 90% in Pouille. Hope that Clos Roche Blanche wasn't hit.
Mark – thanks for update but very sorry to hear about the damage. Will try to find out about Pouillé.
Jim,
Here is a link to a photo of some of the hailstones that fell on Pouille the 16th July. Hope Didier and Catherine's vines survived. As we all know the hail can pass in quite narrow "corridors" which leave intact anything outside those corridors. I suspect that generally there might not be too much wine coming out of Pouille this year.
Talking to Jean-Claude Legrand locally he said that the problem was accentuated by a horizontal strong wind that drove the hailstones into the grape bunches.
http://www.infoclimat.fr/multimedia/photos/24239160720092046.jpg
Mark. Thanks for the link. As ever the news appears to be mixed. Thierry Delaunay reports that Angé was hit harder than Pouillé. Didier and Catherine had some damage from the storm last Thursday (23rd).
In Anjou it has hardly rained in parts of the vineyard since early June.
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