“The vines need sunlight now, they need to be dry,” he said, holding up a moldy grape.

“Excessive rain can cause mold to grow. This fungus grows on the leaves and grapes. This fungus affects the number of grapes.”

Not like before

Tobart said that climate change is disrupting the established order of the vineyards in the Champagne region, and he now harvests in August instead of October.

“We know that to become a winemaker, you have to work with nature. We know that there are risks, and some vintages are okay, and some vintages are not so good,” he told Reuters.

“This year will be very difficult and will remain in my memory, because in the memory of our winemakers, we have never seen such a serious case of mildew.”

He said that the frost in the spring meant that 30% of the harvest was lost, and mold caused another 30% of the loss.

“In a few weeks, we have lost more than half of our harvest,” said Tobart, vice chairman of CIVC, a lobby group for the champagne industry.

“We can’t put the vines in the tunnel”

Franck Jobert, also a grower, said that careful planning helped him reduce losses, but there was only so much he could do.

“We do our best; this is also part of luck, we can’t put the vines in the tunnel,” he said.

Meteo France stated that June to July in Champagne was the second wettest period since records began in the 1960s.

In mid-July, heavy rain hit Western Europe, Caused deadly floods in Germany and Belgium And it arouses people’s worries about damage to a series of agricultural products.

Toubart said this week that the stock of early vintages means that there should be no impact on the champagne supply on the market.