Loire 2016: Weather Report
Nearly a year has passed since my tour of the vines with Matthieu Baudry, and with several subsequent pre-harvest and post-harvest trips to the Loire Valley under my belt, and plenty of encounters with its wines, I now come to review the frostbitten 2016 vintage. And sadly, as I write this report in May 2017, it is impossible not to acknowledge the sad truth that not only has the 2016 vintage been shaped by frost, so too has 2017.
Although at the time of writing all figures are provisional, the icy attack during the spring of 2017 seems to have been more devastating than that which visited the region in 2016. Naturally, this statement comes with several caveats (indeed, this should be the case for any generalisation regarding the Loire Valley). First, in this most expansive and sprawling of regions there are always some parts that are worse hit, while others seem to get away with very little damage at all. Secondly, for 2017 it will not be until the flowering gets underway that we will know the true extent of the damage, and at the time of writing that is still some weeks away.
So, having acknowledged that the situation in 2017 might be much worse, for the moment let us crack on with my 2016 report.
