PARIS (Reuters) – For French winemaker Thomas Ventoura, the spring frost that hit the Chablis vineyards of northeast Burgundy over the weekend has a bitter style of déjà-vu.

Just as at the similar time final 12 months, Ventoura and his employees needed to rush out and place lots of of candles throughout his vineyards earlier than dawn to heat the vines and forestall the destruction of already well-developed shoots by temperatures that had plunged beneath freezing.

Chablis is a really dry white wine that is produced solely in the Yonne area of Burgundy because of the space’s particular local weather. But volumes may now be underneath stress as the emergence of gentle climate early in the 12 months adopted by a spring frost, beforehand uncommon, seems to be to turning into a recurrent pattern.

“Since 2016, there have been three massive frosts,” Ventoura, 34, mentioned. “We’re now beginning to surprise about the way forward for our enterprise right now of the 12 months.”

The change in climate sample can be pushing up his insurance coverage protection for lack of harvest, he added. In Yonne, two thirds of the harvest was destroyed on account of the frost final 12 months, based on the farm ministry.

“There’s lots to be carried out in altering viticulture practices… in the context of local weather change,” mentioned Mathilde Civet, 25, a viticulture adviser to the Chambre d’Agriculture in Yonne, the native consultant physique for the farming sector.

Winemakers had been beginning to be a part of forces to put money into new instruments, resembling heating cables, to assist mitigate the results of such frosts, she mentioned.

However, many in the trade are nonetheless reluctant to resist the reality that the affect of local weather change may very well be lengthy lasting, Civet mentioned.

“The latest episodes of drought and frosts have been a wake-up name for some, however in earlier years there was a type of denial.”

(Reporting by Stéphane Mahé; Writing by Mathieu Rosemain; Editing by Susan Fenton)