It wasn't just the vines that the storm damaged –
house still without the roof repaired over 3 months later
Only a few second or third generation grapes
on the vines in the worst affected parcels
Jean Michel Pieaux, president of the
Vouvray producers with François Pinon
The duo of musicians providing entertainment before the visit
The
tradition of visiting the vines of Vouvray was established some 50 years ago by
Jacques Puisais. I was invited to the 2013 edition, which carried particular
significance this year because of the damage caused by the brief but very severe hailstorm of
17th June. The storm hit Vouvray around 5am having travelled up from the south
west crossing the valleys of the Indre Cher, over Tours and La Loire.
Certainly
there are parts of the appellation, especially along the première côte of
Rochecorbon and Vouvray, where there is no crop left for this year and damage
to the wood means that there will be consequences for next year. Equally there
are parts of Vouvray, like Vernou and Chancay, which missed the storm and will
have a normal crop this year. So there will be Vouvray produced in 2013.
Second visit: bunch of grapes
Before
the harvest is complete it is difficult to have exact figures of the loss from
the storm. However, provisionally, it is thought that damage in 40% of the
appellation is between 80% and 100%, in 20% the damage is between 20% and 60%, while
40% wasn’t touched at all.
We
visited two vineyards: one at Vouvray where the loss was 100% and where they had had
to reprune part of the vineyard because the damage was so severe. Repruning
helps the vine to recover more quickly. Virtually the only grapes to
be seen were some second and third generation bunches.
As well as
seeing the damage and the repruned vines, Etienne Carre (laboratoire de Touraine) and Dominique
Gourdon (chef du centre météorologique de Tours), talked about the 2013 weather. After a very cold spring
followed by a good summer the 2013 weather stats for temperature, rainfall and
sunshine are now around the average for the last 20 years.
They also explained
the history of preventative measures against hail and the present situation. It
is impossible to prevent hail but it is now possible to reduce the impact by
reducing the size of the hailstones. This is done by firing iodure d'argent
into the thunderclouds. This can either be done from above using a plane or by
firing rockets from the ground. Rockets are the safest solution as it is
dangerous for planes to fly close to storm clouds because of the turbulence.
The second visit
was to a producer in Noizay, who will have a normal crop. Here the emphasis was
on biodiversity with contributions by Emmanuelle Bollotte and Pascal Mallier (Chambre d' Agriculture). I'm not sure
what criteria were used to choose this vineyard to illustrate biodiversity as
this was a pretty half-hearted attempt at grassing over a vineyard with just a
thin line of grass in the centre of the row. The producer told us that this
system reduced his use of weed killer by a third. Furthermore there were vines
close by where biodiversity was severely hindered by the use of 100% weed
killer.
They also
talked about the recent adoption of confusion sexuelles – something the
vignerons of Limeray (Touraine-Amboise) were using some 20 years ago.
In one sense it was a brave decision to show a
far from ideal example of biodiversity to the press – both local and national
journalists, amongst them Michel Bettane and Isabelle Bachelet. They could have chosen to show one of the Domaine Huet parcels – biodynamic for well over 20 years,
which would have given a very different impression. From wandering around the
appellation my guess is that neither the vines shown nor the Huet vines
are really representative of the appellation.
Limited grassing over: the producer said he was now spending
a third less on weedkiller than before
A much better chance of biodiversity
in the Domaine Huet vineyards (Le Haut Lieu)
In the vines, including Michel Bettane (brown jacket) and
Isabelle Bachelet
