2024-08-21 04:00:20
Will Moroccan wine disappear? This kind of scenario soon gave rise from the shoulders among the developers in Shereef’s kingdom, but the reality ends up catching up with even the most optimistic. Recognized by the United Nations as an area “water woes”Morocco is going through its sixth consecutive year of drought in 2024, hit by repeated heat waves. The temperature is close to 50 °C in July and August.
So much so that rising temperatures and lack of water put the country’s vineyards at risk of possible extinction, according to French scientist Jacques Poulain, one of the most heroic. “It’s a disaster, the vines I planted less than twenty years ago are dying”problem of the chief winemaker of La Ferme Rouge, number two in the market, which is about 30 hectares (ha) produce 6 million bottles per year.
Located in the Zaër wine region, an hour’s drive south of Rabat, the estate, which Jacques Poulain joined in 2008 with Amine Sourelah, a Moroccan general, is suffering from the effects of global warming. “No normal day since 2018”assures the native of Arcachon, passing through Bordeaux, who estimates that almost 180 mm of water fell this year, compared to 700 mm in the past seven years. “We have stored water in the winter in the basins, before releasing it as needed in the spring, but they have been empty for four years. »
Paradoxical situation
Three days above 38 ° C and grapes “out of order” for nine days, he explained: “The blocks of juice and grapes are no longer nutritious. » Nine days of scorching heat will delay the harvest by three weeks. Result: the volume of grapes harvested fell. “Normally, it is between 7 and 10 tonnes per hectare. Today, we are happy if we make 4 tons. »
A half-hour drive south of Meknes, in the foothills of the Middle Atlas, Domaine de Baccari, a family vineyard of more than a century on which around twenty hectares of French grapes are planted, is still get the results of the day. change. The harvest has started there and the weather promises to be less harsh this year, but the memory of the hot summer of 2023 is still clear.
“We harvest at 49°C, it’s a nightmare”announced Nahla Bahnini immediately. A former director at Saint-Gobain, the Franco-Lebanese launched himself with his Moroccan husband, a surgeon by profession, and the help of wine consultant Stéphane Derenoncourt. In 2015, the couple released their first bottles. The property produces an average of 80,000 each year.
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