Burgundy grape harvest starts 8 August, new record as seven-century study shows climate shift

Record harvest in Burgundy

Grape harvest for crémant sparkling wine began in Burgundy on Saturday, 8 August 2026, breaking the previous early harvest record set on 13 August 2022. Marc Sangoy, president of the Cave de Lugny cooperative in Saône-et-Loire, which groups 1,250 hectares of vines, told AFP that in nearly forty years as a winemaker he had never experienced harvests this early. The previous record had stood for only four years. Sangoy noted that crémant grapes are traditionally harvested first.

The records are falling. It's going fast.

For non-sparkling wines, harvest dates have shifted later than initially expected. Thiébault Huber, president of the Confédération des appellations et des vignerons de Bourgogne, said whites should be picked around 18 to 20 August and reds around 20 to 25 August across the whole of Burgundy. He explained that drought and heatwave had blocked the vine and slowed grape maturation, pushing the expected start from before 15 August to around the 25th. The historical record for red grape harvests at Beaune, set on 15 August 1556 during a drought that lasted from March to September, is therefore not expected to fall.

Seven centuries of data

Climate historian Thomas Labbé compiled every harvest date in Beaune (Côte-d'Or) from 1354 to the present, spanning more than 670 years, in a study published in the European scientific journal "Climate of the Past." The dataset is described as the longest series of harvest dates in the world. Unlike the Bordeaux region, Burgundy's archives go back very far, enabling the compilation.

From 1354 to 1719, extreme heat years occurred every 17 years. From 1720 to 1987, they came every 53 years. Since 1988, every five years. Since the start of the 21st century, there have already been ten extreme years, roughly one every two and a half years. Labbé described a clear mutation starting in 1988, intensifying in the 21st century.

Labbé found that between the late Middle Ages and 1988, the harvest in Beaune took place around 27 September on average. After 1988, everything accelerated. The average start date reached 6 September by 2019, a three-week advance after six centuries of relative stability. Of the ten hottest years since 1354, four occurred in the 21st century: 2003, 2018, 2020, and 2025. Labbé concluded that there has been an explosion of extreme recurrences.

In the last two decades, the exceptional has become the norm.

Lower yields, other regions also early

Vignerons in Burgundy predict yields will be significantly lower because grapes barely grew due to drought. Olivier Fichet, a winemaker in Igé (Saône-et-Loire) who will harvest his 30 hectares around 15 August, estimated yields will barely exceed 30%. Michel Barraud, co-president of the Comité des vins de Bourgogne, the interprofessional body, said the harvest would be very average in quantity but good in quality.

Other French wine regions have also seen historically early harvests. Champagne and Bordeaux began crémant harvests on Thursday, and Languedoc-Roussillon started as early as July.