The first bunches of Muscats arrive in the vats! No you are not dreaming, the harvest has just started this Friday morning, near Codognan, in the Gard. To the Cave d’Héraclès, the first 100% organic vineyard in France, where France Bleu Gard Lozère spent the morning live. Frédéric Saccoman is the director of the Cave d’Héraclès. It was at 8 a.m. live on FB Gard Lozère: “I am in the cellar of Heracles, in the cellar and in fact, we are watching the first Muscat grapes come in. That morning, they have just crossed the doorstep.
– Paul LeGuen
But do you realize? You are harvesting on July 29. This early is unheard of, right?
Yes, every year I actually regret having to call you to tell you thatwe broke a new precocity record. In 2020, it was indeed July 31 which was crazy. And now it’s July 29. So we touch the direct effect of global warming on plants.
But why is the Muscat grape arriving so early this year?
It comes so early because we had a vintage where we were very hot all the time, in fact. We all remember it now and we still live it. And that the vines experience their accelerated development since quite simply when there is water – in particular by irrigation of course, I am not even talking about rain, we don’t even talk about it anymore, “in quotation marks” – but when there is water and when it is very hot, the plant lives its cycle accelerated and it is ready earlier. And like the consumers that we all are, we always want to have Muscat wines – in any case for those that we make there at eleven and a half degrees, etc etc – but if we want them to be “eleven and a half degrees”, we must harvest them now.
So it was really a necessity to start today. It was not by looking at the neighbor that you said to yourself “I should get started too”?
No, it’s not the somewhat masculine competition! I’m not going to use rude expressions, but the thing is that we actually start now. But it’s not to stop for eight weeks, it’s not just “today, we do 60 tons and we stop for two weeks”. It’s really, we start there and from next week, we continue.
But the grape varieties you are harvesting today, will you still be able to harvest them tomorrow or will they have to be changed because with global warming, they will no longer be resistant enough?
Indeed, your comment is correct. The issue of adaptation to global warming is something that has already been driving us for some time at the level of the profession in general. The adaptation of grape varieties, cultural techniques, is necessary. We are becoming, I would say, at the climate level, the climatic conditions that we must have in northern Africa now. The Maghreb and France must start to look alike in terms of climate. And it’s true that the problem now is going to be to transform our farming method and no doubt our grape varieties towards grape varieties that are adapted to these climates. And it’s up to us afterwards to explain that to the customers since it’s once again us, the consumers, who are always looking for Sauvignons, Muscat and Chardonnay -to speak of white grapes-. And tomorrow, maybe we’ll drink things that won’t be those grape varieties anymore, because the grape varieties aren’t going to make it.
Grapes are said to like heat. What will the 2022 vintage taste like?
It’s going to be a good vintage because in fact the the counterpart of the heat, of the absence of water, is that diseases develop very little. So in fact, today we are on grapes that are healthy, so they will be good. After the difficulty that we risk having if it still does not rain, it is because for the vines that are not irrigated, water stress will also be a quality problem. But for the moment, we are still hoping for the famous storm of August 15 which .. if it is calm .. helps us.