There’s an old saying – “it’s August that makes the vintage”. Well, this year not; it was so precocious a start to the year that the normal 100 days from flowering to harvesting points to an August rather than September vendanges. So this year it will be July that to a large extent ‘makes the vintage’.

The forecast for the next days will gladden the heart of all the vignerons. Much of June and July to-date has been a succession of wet, warm, wet, sun then wet again – the main punctuation in the weather has been the thunder and hail. Unfortunately this means not enough sun to chase away the damp so rot is a problem. In some regions even hardened biodynamic types have had to become pragmatic and use chemical approaches to save any crop.

Anyway, provided we can get an extended dry period – and this wind will also help – all is most certainly not lost. Even a couple of weeks more and it would be a sad vendanges, but today there is still hope…