When tourists cycling along the Loire stop at the Domaine des Pierrettes winery, between Chaumont-sur-Loire (Loir-et-Cher) and Amboise (Indre-et-Loire), they have no idea of the wine tragedy that is taking place. After all, the vines are lush. But if you get closer, you discover that they have no bunches, just a few scattered, withered grapes. The foliage is dotted with grey spots that are turning brown. Mildew, a disease caused by a pathogenic fungus, has devastated everything.
Situated behind a forest full of game, 6 kilometres as the crow flies from Chaumont Castle and its famous gardens, the estate covers 40 hectares: 25 organic and 15 converted. When treatment is required, only Bordeaux mixture – a copper-based mixture – is permitted in limited volumes.
Its operating director, Marc-Simon Boyer, sums up the situation: “From October to June, it rained heavily, with temperatures that were neither too high nor too cold. It even rained three times, 30 millimetres, in one week at the end of May – at that time, the plant was fighting the fungus and trying to recover. When you treat it and three days later you see mildew everywhere, you ask yourself questions. Is the mildew becoming more resistant? Are the products still suitable?”
Abandoned plots
In 2024, late blight will spread early throughout the country. First in Gironde, where winegrowers criticised the owners of abandoned plots for having allowed the fungus to spread. In the Cahors DO, spring frosts and then mildew decimated almost all the vineyards.
In Maine-et-Loire, an organic winegrower on the outskirts of Angers explains that he treated it twelve times instead of five to eliminate it. In Limeray (Indre-et-Loire), at the Domaine de la Tonnellerie, created in 1850 and now undergoing organic conversion, its owner, Vincent Péquin, is bitter: “Mildew arrived early, affecting the stem and causing the bunch to fall. We expect 10 hectolitres per hectare, compared to 66 in 2023.”
According to estimates from the Ministry of Agriculture on August 23, the 2024 harvest in France “It is expected to decline in almost all wine-growing regions.” It forecasts a harvest of 40 to 43 million hectolitres, compared to 47.9 million hectolitres in 2023. In fact, while some regions suffer from a chronic shortage of seasonal workers for their manual harvests, others, where the volume of grapes harvested will be lower, will not be affected.
“Receptive and present”
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