Severe hail storms on Saturday caused between 50% and 90% losses in some prestige Burgundy vineyards, such as Pommard for the second consecutive year. Despite using silver iodide generators to reduce the size of the hail stones, vignerons fear that the grand cru production will be severely hit. This seems to have generated a debate along the lines of "who cares - these rich producers can afford it, they may be insured and their wine is too expensive anyway".
Grand cru Burgundy is (unfortunately) beyond the pocket of most of us, but does that devalue their loss? With 730000 hectares of vines in France a few parcels of grand cru won't go amiss. But not only the vignerons are affected; the grapes are hand picked, bottled, labelled and employ labourers and technicians whose livelihoods also depend on the vigneron getting a good price for a short supply product. And losing a year's work is always discouraging. Or should we just stick to champagne?
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