by Hervé Lalau
A violent hail storm destroyed a large part of this year’s harvest in Côte Rôtie, with almost total destruction in some vineyards. Hail stones the size of large marbles battered the region during the night of Wednesday to
Thursday. Although nearly the whole appellation was affected, the Côte Brune appears to have taken a harder hit.
Marcel Guigal, who was at Vinexpo when the storm struck, has not yet been able to assess the devastation, but confirmed that as much as 60% of the fruit had been lost. Although he claims never to seen hail damage this serious in Côte Rôtie, he remained stoic. "I’ve seen producers before ask their insurance companies to reimburse them for crop losses and then exceed the yields permited by the appellation at harvest”. Similarly, Jean-Paul Jamet remained philosophical in his assessment of the situation: 'We've still got some fruit and I'm confident for the rest of the harvest.'
