Burgundy to consider increasing plantings

(TDB) - Two consecutive low volume vintages in Burgundy may mean the region needs to plant more vineyards to solve a current supply-demand imbalance.

In a discussion with Louis-Fabrice Latour in London yesterday, the president of Beaune-based grower and négociant Maison Louis Latour said he “wished” Burgundy was able to produce more wine following the small 2012 and 2013 harvests.

While a vintage in Burgundy produces on average 1.5 million hectolitres, in 2012 that figure was 1.28mhl, and this year he estimated production would total only 1.2mhl following destructive hail storms in the Côte de Beaune.

Due to recent small harvests, including 2010, and an increasing demand for Burgundy worldwide, Latour said that next Tuesday (3 December) there would be a meeting between the growers and négociants to discuss the possibility of increasing plantings in Burgundy.

Explaining the reason for such a discussion, Latour told db, “We don’t want Burgundy to be a rarity; we want a good crop of good quality grapes to make sure the growers make a good living – many growers are in trouble now because the harvest has been too small two years in a row.”

Continuing he observed, “Prices are going up and there is a big demand and there are tons of territories [which are currently not planted to vines] where we could make great wine; we ought to do something.”

He also said that his négociant business was suffering from the shortfall.

“We have hundreds of people working for us and we need wine to sell. If we can’t find it, we will go elsewhere,” reminding db of Louis Latour’s Chardonnay vineyards in the Ardèche and Pinot plantings in The Var as well as, more recently, Beaujolais, following the company’s purchase of Henry Fessy in January 2008