The Observer, July 2025, 'How hot weather is affecting French wines' : "To English ears, the French word for heatwave, canicule, sounds as if it should refer to something cutely innocuous: an ingenious Breton wickerwork basket, say, or an arcane piece of cycling terminology. And perhaps there was a time, back in the innocent days before climate change became impossible to ignore, when the conotations were, if not cute, then certainly positive – a time when all spells of warm, sunny weather were simply, uncomplicatedly “beau”. These days, however, whenever I come across “canicule” in my daily scan of French wine news it brings an altogether more sinister feeling. Successive heatwaves, such as the stretch of 40°C+ days in late June/early July, are changing the face of wine in the country, forcing producers into all kinds of difficult decisions to maintain style and quality, or even to survive in the business at all. In Burgundy, for example, vignerons are increasingly looking to the previously unfashionable, higher, cooler vineyards of the “Hautes-Côtes” to preserve the elegance and freshness of their pinot noir – both of which qualities are very much in evidence in Domaine Machard de Gramont’s delightful summery red."
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