Devastating Provence wildfires have forced thousands to evacuate their homes and impacted an estimated 73 wineries. Now, rosé winemakers are in Southeatern France are beginning to asses the scale of the damage.
The blaze broke out in the Var region, close to the French Riviera, and was spread by strong winds. Provence’s wine producers’ association, the CIVP, said it was unclear how much damage had been caused, and in-depth assessments were underway. While, one winery owner told the BBC that any hit to supplies was likely to push up prices.
The Drinks Business co-founder Stephen Cronk published an open letter that discussed “heartbreaking” impact of the devastation caused by the blaze.
While we are still taking in the magnitude of what has happened, we hope this will serve as a further wakeup call that climate change means that these types of events will be more frequent and more devastating to all of us,” he worte. “Now more than ever we must look to how we will move forward to recover, but also do our best to prevent these from happening again. This year has been marked by many unprecedented clima”tic events all over the world and these reinforce the absolute urgency to act now.
Last week, The National Federation of Agricultural Workers’ Unions said it estimated 73 wineries around Provence had been affected. “There are three vineyards close to us which have been completely destroyed, it’s truly devastating,” Stephen Cronk told the BBC. “Personally, it’s heartbreaking. We’ve been hit by two ‘once-in-a-generation’ frosts, and now comes the worst forest fire in decades.”
France was already expecting one of the country’s worst wine ouputs in history. The wildfires destruction in the country’s rosé-producing region should only fan the flames of that issue.
As wine regions across the globe continue to struggle with drought, wildfires, and other disasters due to climate change, winemakers are looking to vineyards thriving in the barren Negev desert for guidance. Winemakers there are overcoming challenging terroir and producing world-class wines while doing so.
Scientists have recently suggested that up to 85% of land in wine-growing regions could no longer be viable due to the effects of climate change.