Not cold enough by half is the answer.
While you may be sitting at home wondering when the dull, cold winter days will be over ( unless you’re reading this in Australia perhaps) the vignerons here in Champagne are hoping for just the opposite.
“It’s not cold enough” they cry. “Du Froid! Bring on the snow and the frost”
But what are they worried about and why do they want the opposite of what most of you might suspect? You’ll find the answer below
Today it’s about 9 Celsius and it’s a pleasant enough mild day with an overcast sky. Here’s a picture of what the weather’s been like here for the past few weeks.
All pleasant enough, but in January it should be much colder. Last year it started snowing in November and it continued snowing on and off into February; we must have had a metre in total, which is a lot for Champagne.
That was actually great for the vineyards. The vines can rest and recover their strength; any lurking bugs in the soil or the vines are killed off and the sap retreats in the shoots on the vines so that pruning can go ahead normally.
On the other hand if the mild weather is still with by the end of February that could lead to a chain of events that we really don’t want: the sap in the vines will have started to rise before the pruning is completed and the first buds will be showing early too.
Then if there’s a cold snap in April, as there often is, many of those budding grapes will be frozen stiff and killed. That in turn means fewer buds left on the vines and fewer buds means that the ones that remain will develop more rapidly, so we could end up with another really early harvest in August. That’s what happened in 2003
Mind you, last year we had all that snow and we still had an early harvest because of the amazingly warm March and April
I suppose it just goes to show that there’s no telling with Mother Nature will do and that making champagne is still very much dependent on the weather. So the vigneron will just have to wait and see and deal with whatever comes their way. Whatever happens I’ll keep you up to date right here