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Bordeaux vineyards wrecked by storms
Up to 5,000 acres of vines, 5% of Bordeaux production, are shredded by large hailstones during summer storms
HAILSTONE have destroyed up to 5% of Bordeaux’s vines during storms this weekend.
A particularly heavy, concentrated shower of ‘ping-pong ball sized’ hailstones in the Entre-deux-Mers has shredded up to 5,000 hectares of vines.
Up to 100 producers have been affected across a stretch of land 40-50km long and 10km wide in the east of the Gironde.
The president of the Gironde branch of the wine-producers federation, the FDSEA said: “Quickly we will need to assess the situation, and launch all the temporary support measures we can, and think about the wider responses in line with the size of the storm.”
The Gironde prefecture has said it cannot confirm or deny the figures of the FDSEA and was waiting for an assessment by experts.
The Gironde departmental council is holding an emergency meeting today to hear from producers, and the prefecture.
The council’s interim president Jean-Marie Darmian told the newspaper Sud Ouest that the impact was “rare, very localised and sometimes destroyed 100% of the vines where there is not a single grape or leaf left, but 1km of further up, vines are untouched.”
Photo:BrunoJ - fotolia.com
