Extreme weather creates challenges for France’s winemakers

Fabien Cabezas carefully clips a browning stem from one of his vines. The berries that cling to it are stunted, interspersed with shrivelled husks that died months ago.
“These grapes, these are not normal,” he says, inspecting the bunch in his palm. Tough, dented and oversweet, they have lost the equilibrium perfected by his family over the past seven decades in Beaumes-de-Venise, southern France.
At 29, Mr. Cabezas, a fourth-generation winemaker, has inherited a crop plagued by unpredictability. Two years ago, a third of his grapes were lost to drought. The year before that, strong hail destroyed half his harvest. This summer, a wildfire charred the vegetation on the cliff behind his vineyard, less than 100 metres away.
“Once, extreme weather like this was rare,” he says. “Now, there’s something every year.”
Up to 70 per cent of the world’s current wine-producing regions could become unsuitable for grape growing as global warming continues, a 2024 review of 200 studies found. While some increase in temperatures could benefit wine regions in Canada, particularly in British Columbia, too much could be harmful. And for southern European regions, it could be catastrophic.
Climate change has become an undeniable risk for wine growers around the world, disrupting a carefully constructed web of viticulture techniques, local economies and regulation that have evolved over centuries. As temperatures rise, the entire map of wine production is shifting north – a harbinger of the trials that loom over agriculture globally.
Even in temperate Provence, France’s second largest wine-growing region, the effects are being felt. Winemakers must adapt at every stage of the production process to rapidly changing environmental conditions or risk losing their livelihoods.
It’s late September, and this year’s harvest has come to Provence two weeks early. The countryside buzzes with the sounds of grape harvesters and tractors, criss-crossing the valleys tugging trailers loaded with fruit. Two hundred of these vineyards have sent their grapes to the collective producer Maison Sinnae, where they will be crushed and begin their transformation into wine.
Inside the facility, Maison Sinnae’s president, Philippe Pellaton, pours a sample of half-fermented wine into a glass. Pale yellow and citrusy, the drink needs two more years of careful attention before it is ready. Finding a perfect balance, and doing so consistently, is becoming more difficult every year.
Some days this summer, temperatures reached a scalding 40 degrees in Provence, 10 degrees over the historical average. Overall, the heat sped up the ripening process by half a month, concentrating the juice and throwing off the careful calibration of sugar, water and eventual alcohol content, Mr. Pellaton said. Climate change is creating sweeter, more alcoholic wines. Unfortunately, this is opposite to what the market wants, he said: lighter, tarter bottles. “We are in a fight with the grapes, with the climate and with the market.”
For Stéphane Point, one way to deal with the effects of climate change could lie in a long-forgotten plant genome dismissed many decades ago.
As a viticulturist in Sarrians, France, Mr. Point specializes in growing the rootstock onto which vines will later be spliced, helping farmers pair their grape variety of choice with a root system suited to their soil.
But with high temperatures making Provençal soil more arid, the success rate of those splices has declined by 10 per cent in recent years – an expensive setback for his company.
In response, he is attempting to revive 333-EM, a variety of rootstock abandoned in the 1960s because of its cost and the intense labour required to grow and graft it. The trade-off: The root has been found to naturally resist drought and death by frost. Just 20 hectares of the plant are currently being grown in France, of which he is growing a 10th, he said.
It’s a gamble, as the roots require years of effort before they mature, and Mr. Point isn’t sure how they will fare in today’s climates. But the industry’s urgent need for new alternatives is clear. “People all over France and international growers are asking me for roots. They want to know if it will work for them.”
In Provence, climate change has had another effect: more periods of heavy rainfall. And too much rain early in the season creates mould. Once a rare issue, mildew has now become an annual concern.
“You see it first on the leaves, then on the grapes – black patches that start small then grow quickly,” said Enzo Ferretti, walking between the vines at the Domaine La Guicharde in Mondragon, France. “Vines don’t like water and heat.”
Last year, a quarter of the vineyard’s crop was touched by mildew, said Mr. Ferretti, a seventh-generation winemaker who heads sales and logistics for the company. Once grapes are affected, they are no longer usable.
While the fungus can be fought proactively with chemicals, Domaine La Guicharde has chosen to remain organic. So, for the first time, this year it took a chance and planted a field with a new variety of grape that promises to be resistant to disease. But this presents another issue.
Under France’s strict regulations, wines must be made using particular varieties and defined processes to be given regional appellation d’origine contrôlée (AOC) status, which can greatly increase the value of the end product.
In 2021, in light of climate change concerns, France passed a special exception to be in place for 10 years that allows winemakers to use up to 10 per cent of mildew-and-drought-resistant grapes in their wines without losing their appellation status. It remains to be seen what the long-term regulations will be.
“Nobody knows how things will go in the future,” Mr. Ferretti said. “We certainly don’t know.”
Nearby, winemaker Daniel Patrick is experimenting with technology to protect his grapes from the increasingly changeable climate. The owner of Châteaux de la Croix Chabrières in Bollène, France, has covered two and a half hectares of his vineyard with solar panels, and for the first time this year is growing a crop beneath them.
The system, funded externally with private money, is controlled by artificial intelligence and promises to reduce irrigation needs and boost yields by shielding grapes from harsh sun and insulating the ground beneath them in periods of extreme cold.
Meanwhile, the panels will generate renewable energy, helping the winery pay off the equipment within 20 years. With upfront expenses ranging from €500,000 to €1-million (about $750,000 to $1.5-million) a hectare, though, the cost remains prohibitive for most farmers.
Mr. Patrick hopes the experiment will be a model for the future. In the meantime, he faces another challenge: shrinking demand for wine.
Last year, wine consumption reached its lowest rates in 30 years, according to the International Organisation of Vine and Wine. In response, the French government allocated €200-million ($300-million) to producers to destroy surplus supply and stabilize prices.
But this government money is a Band-Aid for bulk wine producers such as Mr. Patrick, who depend on selling large quantities to make up for thin margins. Fewer sales degrade economies of scale, he said, even as fixed production costs are rising.
In an effort to keep their businesses afloat, many winemakers are hoping to shift to producing premium vintages, which are more profitable – but doing so is not always possible, given the capital and geological conditions required.
It’s no wonder, Mr. Patrick said, that his children have no interest in taking over the family business.
Despite the hazards, Mr. Cabezas, the fourth-generation farmer from Beaumes-de-Venise, has been fortunate this season. Almost all of his Grenache grapes have survived the summer, and his parents are busy over the vines, harvesting the fruit. The roots of these vines are more than 50 years old, woody and too delicate to be handled by machine.
The success is perhaps partially the result of a new technique he tried this year: letting grass grow a metre high between each row of vines, slowing the evaporation of moisture from the ground and keeping the roots cool.
“We cross our fingers, and we continue as we always have,” said Mr. Cabezas, gazing down the slope of his vineyard. “But as we do, we must also find small ways to innovate.”