Bordeaux Wildfires

An Update On En Primeur Stock And Future Vintages

Photo credit: BBC News/EPA/Shutterstock

While we fight our own wildfires, we can only count our blessings that we haven't been as ravaged as some of the prime wine-growing areas of France. With temperatures topping out at 44C in the south west of the country this summer, France has suffered the heat more than we have here in the UK. Of course, our thoughts and prayers are with the people of France - and across Europe - who have lost homes, communities and livelihoods in the wildfires, but it would be remiss of us as a wine merchant not to give you our inside knowledge and honest opinion about how the wines in these regions have been affected.

First of all, if you have en primeur wine bought through us (Bordeaux 2024 for example) you'll be relieved to know that our two main negociants, Clarence Dillon and Sichel, have warehouses in the middle of the city away from the fires. In fact, Sichel has one of the oldest warehouses on the quai - riverside docks - in Bordeaux, and Chateau Haut Brion (Clarence Dillon) is based on the outskirts of the city, so it's protected by built-up areas. So all current en primeur stock that you've bought through us and not yet landed here in the UK is safe.

According to this article in The Independent, despite the magnitude of the fire (42,000 hectares to the west of the city have been torched) no vines, cellars or wineries have been touched. However, the vignerons cannot tell yet which vineyards will have been affected by 'smoke taint'. There are different reports coming out of the region, depending on who you talk to - some growers in Saint-Émilion, for example, claim to have not seen a puff of smoke. But for those closer to and in the Left Bank appellation there will be the possibility of smoke taint. As the article states:

'Smoke over a vineyard makes for alarming television but inconclusive wine science. A plume might blow through and leave almost nothing behind. Equally, grapes that look and taste perfectly healthy can carry compounds that emerge only after they have b een picked, pressed and fermented.' 

In short, the vignerons won't know how badly their grapes have been affected until a lot of time and money has been spent on the harvesting, macerating, fermenting, ageing and bottling of the wine.

In the longer term, those 42,000 hectares of lost woodland will have quite a different side-effect to Bordeaux's wines. Although the fire didn't destroy vineyards, it did burn to the ground a huge amount of the Landes forest that was planted on the orders of Napoleon III two hundred years ago. Back then the forest was planted to help drain a swamp and make it habitable (shepherds used to have to cross it on stilts). As the maritime pines grew they became a windbreak against the harsher Atlantic winds, which would bring with them harmful gusts of salt-laden, wet air. There's more information in this article from Vinepair.com - but the result of losing this amount of forest means that some parts of the Gironde will have lost this protective barrier between them and the Atlantic coast.

Even before the wildfires, Bordeaux was looking at a small harvest after the dry spring and reluctance from authorities to allow vignerons to irrigate the vines. Only time will tell how much the weather, fires - and whatever else may come before harvest - will have affected the 2026 vintage. But we'll let you know as soon as we hear.