On alert for the next few nights, the French vineyards fear violent frosts on plots that are well advanced in vegetative development, from Anjou to the Var, via Champagne: and even if the damage is small, it will still be necessary to hold out in April...

Whether it is tonight and the next ones, the risk of frost is confirmed in the French vineyards, the question for many areas being not whether it will freeze, but at what intensity. With forecasts of -3 to -4°C under shelter in Champagne, "a descent of cold air is common at this time. What is not common is the exceptional advance of the vines: between 15 days and 3 weeks, especially of Chardonnay but also of Pinot Noir depending on the sector," reports Sébastien Debuisson, the R&D director of the Comité Champagne, who notes that with a "fairly widespread frost, not everyone can protect everything. Especially with a gel that is both radiative and convective, apart from sprinkling, not all protection solutions are effective. There are no real recommendations, we will suffer and wait to count the damage. »

Knowing that there is already damage in the whole of the Champagne vineyards following the frosts of last Sunday, March 22 in the Côte des Bars and the Marne valley in particular, and the days that followed, in a more localized way, notes Sébastien Debuisson, noting that "the damage is in the process of being released. As there was rain, it is deleterious even for the buds in the mud. Damage is also already visible in Anjou, after the frosts of Sunday, March 15, which affected buds in the cotton: "they are supposed not to burst even at -4°C, but it's the humidity that makes the difference," says Thomas Gardan, the vineyard manager of the Belargus estate (23 hectares in production in Val-du-Layon, Maine-et-Loire).

On the estate, 38 km of Frolight LED wires (heating the vines and their buds by radiation to protect them down to -6°C) are deployed on 7 hectares of the frost zones of Chaume and 300 candles/ha on 3.5 ha (protection down to -3°C) in other terroirs at risk. Already active for the last few nights, Thomas Gardan and his team will be mobilized tonight as concern rises for Thursday morning: "The wind is dropping for tomorrow morning, it would be frosty. The weather models announce 9 to 16 km/h, none of them is able to predict the conditions we will have at daybreak," notes the vineyard manager, who also has uncertainties for Friday, the forecasts ranging from 4.2 to -2.9°C... "We suspected that we would be in a situation of frost risk. At the end of March, the vegetation should not have emerged. This uncertainty will last 2 months... Because other alerts are already planned, as early as this weekend...

Including in the South, such as in the vineyards of Provence. "The risk of frost is widespread on Friday and Saturday, with perhaps residual wind for Friday morning," reports Sylvain Audemard, the president of the Var Chamber of Agriculture, noting that "the southern half of the Var is likely to be impacted". To protect the plots, the prefecture has just issued orders authorising burning, the CA83 announces. All means of protection must be mobilized when the risks are so great. "The current vulnerability (sensitivity, bud bursting at -1.5°C) of the vine leaves no margin for error: forecasts require the systematic implementation of protection methods to preserve all or part of the harvest. Heat is recommended under the towers," says the latest note from the Maine-et-Loire Wine Technical Association (ATV49), which calls on winegrowers to follow the wind forecast for Thursday morning and to be already mobilized for Friday: "In view of the day's forecasts, all the parameters are red, which could cause significant damage to the Angers vines at the very advanced stages of 2026."

Vitisphere

by By Alexandre Abellan On 25 March 2026

PHOTO CREDIT photo credit: Adobe Stock (Aurélien Ibanez)