After dismal 2017, French winemakers celebrate ‘incredible 2018’
New York — In Saint Emilion, at Chateau Corbin, winemaker Anabelle Cruse-Bardinet is exuberant about this year’s harvest. Spring frosts devastated her vineyard last year, as they did to many other chateaux in Bordeaux, and she made no wine at all. "We are going to make an incredible vintage in 2018," she e-mailed. "We had a dry and sunny summer, giving grapes good concentration and very ripe tannins." It was the hottest July since the great vintage of 1947. Fall is wine harvest season in the northern hemisphere. Most vignerons in France are smiling, thrilled that 2018 is not a repeat of miserable 2017, when they harvested the smallest crop since World War II, no thanks to massive frosts, violent hailstorms, and scorching heatwaves. (Surprisingly, the quality of the grapes that survived was outstanding in many places, including Bordeaux.) This year, besides winning the World Cup, France is also one of the big winners in the global harvest sweepstakes. Over the past 10 days, I’ve e-ma...
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