Loire 2021: Winter
As I also noted in my 2021 Bordeaux report, this is the second season and harvest conducted during the course of the Covid-19 pandemic. This inevitability brings extra challenges, including of course the risk that a team of pickers could all become ill at the same time, just as the fruit was ready for picking. Happily, however, I did not hear of any domaine that had to deal with this sort of problem.
The region also faces new barriers to export, the departure of the United Kingdom from the European Union combined with a weak pound having made trade with the United Kingdom more difficult, more costly and more time-consuming. And the UK is not a minor market for the Loire Valley; in 2020 (the most recent figures available at the time of writing) UK drinkers supped down 20% of all the wine made in this region. To put that in a global context, 2020 exports to the UK came to more than 107,000 hectolitres, making it the second largest export market by volume, just behind the USA in first place with 110,000 hectolitres (a tiny fraction more than the UK). The loss of easy access to this market is a real blow for this region.
So there are new challenges, but the first challenge is of course to grow the grapes and harvest the fruit. The season began with a cold January but a balmy February, and overall it was a very mild winter. A consequence of climate change, mild winters are significant because it is the unseasonal warmth which prompts an early budbreak, followed by the long period of frost-risk which does not pass until mid-May. Despite this Vincent Lieubeau (pictured) told me budburst on the Famille Lieubeau vineyards was a little later than usual (although not so late as to escape frost damage, sadly). Thus from the outset this was always going to be a late harvest, but the conditions during spring and summer would later conspire to ensure this was true.
