The first official figures on the size of the French vintage 2003 suggest that it will be the smallest for a decade – mainly because the summer drought resulted in much smaller and less juicy berries than usual but also because of spring frosts in some regions, poor weather at flowering and some hail.
According to the wine trade weekly Harpers, which continues to provide much useful information even after Tim Atkin's departure as editor, a total of just 47 million hectolitres (4,700 million litres) is expected. This compares with 52 million hl in 2002 and 1999's record total of 63 million litres.
This year's shortfall in AC wines compared with 2002 is negligible in Bordeaux but the 2003 vintage in Champagne is down by 40 per cent, thanks to particularly heavy frost damage, and the harvest in Burgundy is down by almost as much, 38 per cent. The grape harvest in Languedoc-Roussillon, Rhône and Alsace are forecast to have dropped by about 22 per cent, with a drop of around 11 per cent in the Loire.
Perhaps more significant for quality rather than quantity is that the authorities have allowed widescale acidification of grape musts – even, amazingly, in England, Luxembourg and Germany – after the record temperatures of the summer led to dramatically lower acid levels than usual. One quote from Harpers intrigued me: 'The acidity must be of agricultural origin, and the chemical form imported from China and currently on the market is not recognised.'
