The Comité Champagne have announced the yield for the Champagne harvest is 10,800 kg per hectare including 500kg per hectare to be unblocked from the reserves.
The Minister of Agriculture recently announced that the French wine harvest would be ‘historically low’. Yields in some wine making areas such as Bordeaux and the Jura have been cut as much as 50%. What has caused this is the lack of rain in Spring and severe frost in April. In Champagne, the frost damage stands at 20%.
Weather has been good since mid-May and the vines are about ten days ahead in their growing cycle.
The harvest is expected to start in late August. This will make it one of the five earliest in the history of Champagne.