Drought, storms, wild boar… for the winegrowers of the Var, it’s a triple penalty

Punctured leaves, split grapes and gnawed vines: the damage from the storms of August 17 can still be seen in the Var vines where the harvest is beginning. “We had to postpone our first grape harvests by several days. Entire plots were soiled. A quarter of the harvest is ruined”, laments Robert Ghigo, at the head of the Château Vert estate in La Londe-les-Maures (Var). This commune was the epicenter of the violent storms which fell on the South. “The closer the estates were to the sea, like ours, the more devastating the hailstorm was. This is on top of the drought that has been going on for months. This is a cuvée that will have to be saved. But at what cost ? he wonders.