Andrew Jefford, award-winning author and columnist in every issue of Decanter and World of Fine Wine, Co-Chair Decanter World Wine Awards; Vice-Chair Decanter Asia Wine Awards, gives us his insight about the 2019 vintage in France. The beat goes on. The 2019 vintage in France marked five continuous years (since 2015) of warmer-than-average weather. Global warming is with us and accelerating – but so far, for the wine growers of France, it has been merciful.

The 2022 vintage was, in general, a great year for France. Weirdly. Look at the data. It shouldn’t have been: the gauges for both drought and heat were often flashing red. What happened?

Was 2023 a good vintage in France? Or a bad one?  It was both – and neither.  The word that probably best sums it up is ‘chaos’; it was France’s most chaotic vintage since 2017.  This is exactly what winegrowers should expect as we slide towards 2030, setting fire to the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement goals as we go.  Climate change will, we know, bring climate chaos; 2023 offered a foretaste.