RIVESALTES — It is barely visible on the surface of the soil. Yet Antoine Lespès, in charge of R&D at Domaine Lafage, has spread nearly 4 tons of biochar per hectare on this experimental vineyard plot at Mas Moutou, near Rivesaltes, close to the southern French city of Perpignan.
“Most of it is buried 12 inches deep,” explains the agronomist. Why? Because the main function of this special charcoal is to retain moisture in the soil, thus helping vines to better resist to hydric stress. A vital characteristic in the southeastern region of Roussillon which has been experiencing a pre-desert climate for two years, with one day over 95°F after the other.
“It holds astonishing potential,” says Lespès. “Since it is very porous, biochar can absorb at least twice its weight in water. Or even much more depending on the composition. We systematically mix it with organic matter, from which it absorbs the moisture to then release it according to the plant’s needs.”
The results are visible to the naked eye. In the experimental plot, the agronomist shows a row of vines that benefited from this mixture and no irrigation, and compares it with another row which underwent the opposite process. The row with biochar and no water is clearly doing just as well as the one that was watered.
Recurring disasters
“Stopping irrigation completely is not the goal here,” says Jean-Marc Lafage, who built this 300-hectare farm with his ex-wife Eliane, after they both explored vineyards around the world as oenologists. “It’s about reducing water consumption by a third. In short, it is about making vineyards more sustainable in every way.”
Such an initiative shows that some winegrowers are not giving up despite the harsh consequences of climate change that have recently been devastating French vineyards. And drought is only one aspect to blame. Depending on their location, wine producers also have to deal with waves of frost, hail and contamination by fungal diseases such as mildew.
So many scourges they have always had to deal with, one might object. True, but what makes it different today is the intensity and frequency of these events. “They used to be episodic,” explains Jean-Marie Fabre, president of the viticultural trade association the Vignerons indépendants de France. “Now, each year carries its share of disasters that can even happen several times during the season.”
End of a cycle
This climatic uncertainty is all the more difficult to manage because of the very chaotic economic context it occurs in. “Producers were already undermined by the decline in wine consumption, fueled in particular by health arguments, when they had to face in turn the Covid crisis, which caused sales in restaurants to plummet, Trump import taxes and the war in Ukraine, which led costs to soar by 33% between February 2022 and 2023,” says Fabre. Suffice to say that companies are often in the red.
This situation is made all the more delicate by the fact that the industry is suffering from another problem, a structural one this time: the inadequacy of part of the supply in the face of market trends. Simply put, France produces too much red wine, when the demand is for whites and rosés, and wines that are too heavy, while consumers want freshness. And global warming accentuates this trend, causing the grapes to ripen early, in mid-August, thereby increasing the sugar — and therefore alcohol content — while reducing acidity. As a result, stocks are accumulating in cooperatives or at wine merchants.
To restore balance, the sector has decided to go through a new voluntary plan for uprooting vines, supported by subsidies. In the Bordeaux region, undoubtedly the most affected by this overproduction phenomenon, more than 10,000 hectares have already been eliminated since last year. But a nationwide plan is due to start in October, calibrated at 100,000 hectares, the equivalent of 4 to 5 million hectoliters of wine that have not found buyers in the last two years.
This is sparking debate, with some comparing it to a sort of “devindustrialization”. “In some places, there is no other solution than uprooting”, recognizes Jean-Claude Mas, who has built a vast estate of nearly 1,000 hectares across the entire Languedoc-Roussillon region. “But it must remain targeted,” he insists. “We should not amputate everywhere, but treat each case individually.”
Simply put, France produces too much red wine
Today’s landscape is the product of the choices made thirty or forty years ago. “We planted decadently and thoughtlessly with the main objective of producing more and more cheaply,” says Mas. There was a push to an extreme, clonal selection, which aimed at replicating the most productive individuals, and in turn led to a loss of biodiversity, to the detriment of the plant’s resistance. And no one had anticipated the increasingly harsh climatic conditions. “We are coming to the end of a cycle,” summarizes Caroline Frey, head of three grands crus (or groups of vineyards) in Burgundy, the Rhône and Bordeaux. “We have to write a new one.”
Taking care of the soil
The good news is that there are solutions, which the most committed winegrowers are already putting into practice. Even if the toolbox must be adapted to the soil and climate conditions of each vineyard, everything begins, according to them, with a return to soil care.
“Over three decades, French vineyards have lost 40% of their organic matter,” warns oenologist Matthieu Dubernet. He has no doubt what is to blame: the main culprits are synthetic fertilizers. “They cause a bacteriological hyperactivity that ends up burning the humus,” he explains. And yet, the humus, or the organic components of the soit, is what allows the soils to better retain moisture.
Disasters can happen several times during the season.
Today, we must therefore turn back to more natural technologies. If most farmers have not yet adopted biochar, many have returned to manure— even if it means letting sheep graze between the rows. Another way to regenerate soil is cover crops — plants that are planted to cover the soil rather than for the purpose of being harvested. “In winter, grass facilitates the infiltration of rain and thus allows for the creation of a good water reserve that is useful for the strategic period of bud break,” explains Alain Deloire, former teacher at SupAgro Montpellier, now a consultant. To prevent these cover crops from competing with the vines, they are destroyed in the spring, which also provides organic matter to the soil.
Ripening delays
While it increases vine’s resilience, working the soil on its own is not enough to cope with all the new climatic hazards. Thirty years ago the grape clusters sometimes had difficulty ripening, today they burn in the sun. Winegrowers must therefore learn how to protect them while delaying the ripening of the berry so that the grape remains an autumn fruit. This means juggling with the techniques and periods of pruning the vine which influence the leaf surface. But also on the orientation of the rows.
“All our new plantations are now done in an east-west direction to prevent the setting sun, which is the most dangerous, from hitting the grape clusters,” says Antoine Lespès. Others do not hesitate to relocate part of the vineyard. “Over the past twelve years, I have replanted 40 hectares on plain land that offers a good balance between fertility, freshness and access to water,” explains Jean-Claude Mas.
The goal is not to replace Merlot or Cabernet, but to identify the varieties best suited to climate change
For Dubernet, the collaboration between the cultivation manager and the cellar master working on the same vineyard must improve. “Too often, they still work in silos,” he says. “But precision viticulture, which is what we are moving towards, implies a tighter cooperation within a new discipline, agro-oenology, which associates the nutrition of the plant with the qualitative objectives set for the wine.”
Back to mass selection
With this in mind, the renewal of the grape varieties is one of the most strategic decisions to make, because it involves a commitment over several decades for winemakers. After the excesses of clonal selection, many are now returning to mass selection, meaning the identification of the most resistant vine stocks among the old vines, to then replant them. A way of reintroducing diversity within the crops. “We have constituted a small Syrah conservatory with around 20 individuals whose performance we monitor,” says Caroline Frey.
Some go even further. At the entrance to his Château La Tour Carnet estate in Haut-Médoc, Bernard Magrez has set up an experimental vineyard since 2013 where he tests the behavior of 86 different grape varieties, some of which from hot countries. “The goal is not to replace Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon or Petit Verdot, but to identify the varieties best suited to climate change, which we could include into our blends without harming their typicality,” explains the 88-year-old entrepreneur who, in addition to his four Bordeaux grands crus, owns vineyards in Italy, Portugal, Spain and even Argentina.
To push the test all the way to the winemaking process, Magrez has set up a winery with 86 small vats. The results from the first experimental campaign were presented in the spring. “No grape variety has proven ideal,” says Lucile Dijkstra, the operations manager. “But a small group has nevertheless stood out: Arinarnoa, Duras, Manseng Noir and Vinhao.”
The final step is to obtain authorization from the Inao (National Institute of Origin and Quality) to introduce them into the specifications of AOPs (Protected Designations of Origin). Which is far from being a done deal.
Protective equipment
Solutions against mildew or other types of hazard, as for frost or hail, are often mechanical. “Thanks to drones equipped with cameras able to detect 170 shades of yellow, we can anticipate mildew attacks and treat accordingly,” explains Bernard Magrez. Against frost, the introduction of new grape varieties that bud later would be welcome. But for now, winegrowers turn to various techniques, such as candles, heating wires, spraying mist to enclose the buds in a cocoon of ice, or wind turbines to stir the air. To fight against hail, they use cannons or balloons which disperse silver iodide solutions in the clouds at risk to prevent hailstones from forming.
The bubble has burst.
However, all these solutions are expensive: between 4,000 and 5,000 euros per hectare, according to Jean-Marie Fabre. Hence the appeal launched by the president of the Vignerons indépendants de France, asking the state to help winegrowers buy proper equipment and not having to play firefighter in the event of a disaster. “In 2021, when frost caused a 30% loss in production, the government had to release an emergency plan of 1 billion euros,” he recalls.
But above all, winegrowers need to reconnect with performance and profitability. “We need to be realistic,” says Matthieu Dubernet. “The bubble in which they lived, sheltered by the French prestige, has burst.”
Salvation now lies in innovation. But that requires means. “In Roussillon, we can play with 55 grape varieties. It’s a unique asset in the world and we don’t yet know how to showcase,” laments Mas, who even went to sell his wines where he was not expected, in Australia.
The uprooting plan will undoubtedly restore some balance and clean up the market. But in a context of intense competition and increasing climatic instability, it risks fizzling out if the French vineyard sector keeps its model unchanged.
