Champagne Producers Race Through Earliest Harvest on Record After Heat and Drought
Record heat and drought sped ripening and cut yields, while growers said 43% of potential production was lost to spring frosts.
- On the hillsides of Hautvillers, production director Alexandre Gobillard of the Gobillard & Fils Champagne house began harvesting earlier than ever as extreme heat and drought accelerated ripening in mid-August.
- David Chatillon, president of the Union of Champagne Houses, attributed a 43% drop in potential yields to spring frosts and drought, challenges the industry has adapted to for the past 25 years.
- Hand harvesting requires around 120 workers recruited from across France and Poland, commercial director Geoffrey Bonnet-Gobillard noted, creating significant logistical constraints for early August dates.
- According to the Comité Champagne 2026 report, the industry shipped 266.1 million bottles last year, generating $6.6 billion in sales, with exports accounting for 56.5% of shipments.
- Harvest cycles have compressed from 100 days after flowering to 80 days, according to Gobillard, and producers may soon reconsider long-established practices as agricultural machinery becomes more sophisticated.
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Faced with the accelerated ripening of her vines, Ophélie Lapie-Lamiable, a winemaker in Tours-sur-Marne, near Épernay (Marne), began harvesting on Saturday, five days earlier than planned, in high temperatures and with only half her team present. "When we started taking samples, we realized it was going very, very fast; we had to call everyone back," she told AFP on Monday. Depending on the municipality and grape variety, the official harvest …
The Billings Gazette
Record-early champagne harvest highlights climate change impact on French vineyards
Higher temperatures accelerate ripening and produce grapes with a higher sugar content, making it harder to preserve champagne's flavor and acidity.
The Champagne region in France is having its earliest grape harvest ever. Here’s why
Champagne producers are racing to pick their grapes as the region’s earliest harvest on record gets underway, after extreme heat and drought accelerated ripening, leaving growers a narrow window to preserve the quality of the region’s world-famous sparkling wine. On the hillsides of Hautvillers, teams of grape pickers start work at 6:30 a.m. among rows of vines that were recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2015. For Alexandre Gobillard…
Champagne begins earliest-ever grape harvest due to heat and drought The French region of Champagne began harvesting grapes in mid-August, the earliest in history. Heat and drought have shortened the time for the harvest.
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