Louise Sallé, edited by Solène Leroux 07:39, April 28, 2022

The International Organization of Vine and Wine confirmed on Wednesday the drop in world wine production in 2021 for the third consecutive year.

The sector is increasingly encouraged to adapt to global warming, in order to avoid a significant drop in production in the years to come.

The International Organization of Vine and Wine (OIV) notes that production is decreasing in 2021 for the third consecutive year.

On Wednesday, it listed, country by country, the precise production volumes reached in 2021. They had already been estimated this fall, but their exact quantities are now known.

In France, yields have thus fallen by 19% compared to those of 2020, due to extreme climatic phenomena.

The frosts and intense rains, which the country experienced last year, will be more and more frequent events in the years to come, coupled with droughts and heat waves.

If the sector does not adapt quickly to global warming, the reductions in production will be even greater.

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Climatic hazards that will no longer be so exceptional

2021 has therefore been a special year for France.

The country has accumulated the most extreme disasters for viticulture: frost in April after a very mild winter and intense rains during the summer, which triggered diseases on the vines. 

These hazards will no longer be so exceptional in the future, explains agroclimatologist Serge Zaka.

"By 2050, we have a 60% chance of reliving a year like 2021. That does not mean that all years will be catastrophic. But there will be 'peaks down', in terms of yields, 2021, which will be more and more frequent", he explains at the microphone of Europe 1. "If we do not modify anything in current agricultural production, we are going towards a decrease in production, for the vine, but also for other cultures.

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Choose more resistant grapes

To ensure that wine production does not decrease, there is only one solution: to adapt.

By choosing, in particular, other types of more resistant grapes.

“We have to find grape varieties that are a little later, whose buds hatch later in the year after the April frost,” explains the agroclimatologist.

"At the same time, we have to find grape varieties that are resistant to high heat and drought in summer. These grape varieties exist, they are found in Spain and Italy."

But for wine estates, changing grape varieties is an upheaval.

This means that the appellations will no longer be the same, and the tastes of the wines will be modified.

For many regions and their winegrowers, renouncing this heritage is still a difficult step to take.