Walter Sobchak writes:

Unseasonable late April weather damaged vineyards in France and England

They warned us that the delicate vineyards could be severely damaged by man caused global climate change. We wouldn’t listen and see what we got:

French Bordeaux vineyards could lose half of harvest due to frost on Sat May 6, 2017

REUTERS BORDEAUX, France “Bordeaux vineyards in southwest France could lose about half of their harvest this year after two nights of frost damaged the crop at the end of April, a wine industry official said on Saturday. … Wines from the Cognac, Bergerac, and Lot-et-Garonne regions had also been affected … ‘For Bordeaux wines…we estimate that the impact will be a loss of about 50 percent, depend on how many buds can regrow'”

English vineyards report ‘catastrophic’ damage after severe April frost

GUARDIAN.COM “Chris White, the chief executive of Denbies Wine Estate in Surrey, said up to 75% of its crop was damaged by last week’s sub-zero temperatures: “The temperature dropped to -6C and at that level it causes catastrophic damage to buds,” he said. White said staff had worked in vain using special fans and heaters to protect the vineyard, which at 265 acres in the UK’s biggest, after an Arctic blast swept across the UK. … ‘It’s been a stark reminder of the difficulties faced by wine producers in the country, and yes … at this moment we are asking ourselves whether we were mad to try and grow vines in England,’ said Wenman”

WINESPECTATOR.COM French Winemakers Weathering Worst Frost in 25 Years

Cold weather struck France’s young vine buds again this week, and Bordeaux is the latest region to suffer frost damage. Farther north, Burgundy and Champagne also weathered cold conditions and frost. Damage reports are incomplete so far, mainly because winegrowers have been busy preparing anti-frost measures.

Bordeaux’s Right Bank Hit Hard

“We can already estimate that we have lost nearly half of the potential crop,” said Xavier Coumau, president of Bordeaux’s Syndicate of Wine and Spirits Courtiers.

Many are calling it the worst frost since 1991, as temperatures dropped to nearly 26° F in some spots. Damage has been reported on the Right Bank, including in Pomerol and St.-Emilion—though the plateau of St.-Emilion was spared—as well as Pessac and Graves and even up in the western edge of the Médoc.

“It is rather dramatic,” Stéphane Derenoncourt, proprietor of Domaine de l’A in Castillon and consultant to dozens of Right Bank estates, told Wine Spectator. “Only the plateau and the tops of slopes are spared. There is damage everywhere, sometimes 100 percent. We haven’t seen everything yet, and it is fo