Harvest highlights of years gone by

Domaine Taluau-Foltzenlogel Passion, Bourgueil, Loire, France 2022 (£15.75, Yapp) It’s wine harvest time throughout the northern hemisphere at the moment. It’s a season that provokes fear and excitement in almost equal measure for wine growers: fear of what bad weather could still do to the quality and quantity of the crop; excitement about the renewal and potential that comes when the weather gods smile down with gentle sunshine until the last grape comes in. In France, advance notice suggests many growers had already adjusted their expectations downwards before the first pickers had arrived, with a savage bout of mildew affecting much of the country after heavy early summer rains. Early estimates from the official French agricultural ministry suggest a drop of about 16% on last year’s harvest – with bad weather also causing a problem called coulure, when the fruit fails to develop after flowering, in regions such as Alsace, Bordeaux and the Loire. All the more reason, then, to stock up on wines from recent successful vintages, such as Domaine Taluau-Foltzenlogel’s gracefully succulent cabernet franc red from 2022.

Acústic Celler Blanc, Montsant, Spain 2022 (£20.95, or £18.95 as part of a case of 12 bottles, Lea & Sandeman) Early rainfall is just one of a number of meteorological challenges that have become more severe in recent years thanks to the climate crisis, with late spring frost, extreme heat, drought and wildfires all taking their toll on production with increasing extremity and frequency. According to the International Organisation of Vine and Wine, last year was the lowest wine harvest in more than 60 years, with extreme weather events leading to a drop of 7% on 2022, taking it down to a level last seen in 1961. Among the worst-hit countries was Spain, which dropped 14% to a 20-year low thanks to extreme drought. Things are looking up: early forecasts say the total Spanish grape harvest will be up by 20% this year. Good news for producers in regions that were hardest hit last year, such as Montsant in Catalonia, home of Acústic Celler’s evocatively rich, honeyed-peachy mouthful.

Bonny Doon Cigare Volant, Central Coast California 2021, (£16, Tesco) Harvest challenges are not all about the weather. Economic factors include a lack of labour, notably in remote corners of southern Europe, where rural depopulation has made the romantic notion of the collective village harvest a thing of the past. In California, the chief concern among wine growers this harvest hasn’t been an absence of pickers, but an absence of buyers. According to the San Francisco Chronicle’s wine reporter Jess Lander, falling sales of Californian wine both internationally and in the US has led to large stocks of unsold wine from previous vintages. Many growers, as a result, can’t find a buyer for this year’s crop and are simply leaving the grapes on the vine. It’s a sorry sight, but one that some observers have said might inspire a drop in Californian wine’s famously steep prices, which might mean more bottles offering the high bang-per-buck ratio of Bonny Doon’s spicy, meaty Rhône-alike, Cigare Volant.

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