(Saint-Émilion) Candles, flaming bales of straw or wind turbines: winegrowers in Saint-Émilion activated their anti-freeze devices as a precaution during the night from Monday to Tuesday, but the cold episode was less marked than expected, as elsewhere In France.
“More fear than harm,” summarizes Emilie Renard, communications manager for the Saint-Émilion Wine Council. “It was warmer than we feared… overall between 1 and 2 degrees.”
Météo France noted “frequent frosts” during the night from Monday to Tuesday across the entire territory, with peaks of “-5.2°C in Chaumont or -3.5°C in Guéret”, but “l “The national thermal indicator of minimums reached around 2.6°C, a value which is not remarkable on a national scale.”
In Saint-Émilion, “those who lit candles or their wind turbines did so more as a precaution,” explains Emilie Renard.
Daniel Garrigue, winemaker at Château Lucia, began “monitoring plot by plot” after “having an alert at midnight when temperatures had reached four degrees”.
After a peak of -1° around 2 a.m., four people were mobilized to light large candles between the vines, at a rate of “around 600 per hectare”, he explained to the ‘AFP, but about half was enough to keep the temperature around zero.
“It’s difficult to find candles in the event of a frost episode, the price fluctuates between 8 and 13 euros,” explains Caroline Teycheney, owner of Château Fleur de Lys, who bought wind turbines after a frost episode in 2017 to “mix the air and prevent fresh air from falling on the buds”.
“They turn on automatically from 1 degree and last night, only some started and stopped within an hour,” she added.
For the moment, the situation is “not alarming”, but Carole Teycheney remains vigilant until the Ice Saints, around May 10, because “we are two weeks ahead of the release of the buds compared to the ‘last year “.
“The risk is to lose all or half of the harvest,” underlines Emilie Renard, recalling the last episode of massive late frost in Bordeaux in April 2021.