The Grape Harvest Almanac
Since 1354, French grape harvest dates have traced the history of climate in France, extreme droughts, summers that never came, vineyard crises, and record-breaking early harvests.
Every year since the fourteenth century, winegrowers have recorded the date they started picking grapes. Strung together, these dates form one of the longest directly observed climate series in the world: six hundred and fifty years of warmer or cooler summers, told through seven French winegrowing regions.
The chart brings together Burgundy, the Southern Rhône Valley, Bordeaux, Languedoc, Alsace, the Lower Loire Valley, and Champagne, seven regions chosen for the length and continuity of their records through to today. Four landmarks punctuate the story: the 1540 megadrought, the year without a summer in 1816, the phylloxera crisis that nearly wiped out French vineyards, and the 2003 heatwave, one of the earliest grape harvests ever recorded.
Show the data as a table
| Century | Burgundy | Southern Rhône Valley | Bordeaux | Languedoc | Alsace | Lower Loire Valley | Champagne |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 14th century | September 19 (29) | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a |
| 15th century | September 25 (88) | September 14 (16) | October 8 (11) | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a |
| 16th century | September 28 (85) | September 11 (47) | October 2 (16) | September 20 (8) | n/a | n/a | n/a |
| 17th century | September 24 (99) | September 19 (97) | October 1 (36) | September 24 (91) | October 13 (1) | n/a | n/a |
| 18th century | September 26 (100) | September 29 (95) | September 28 (58) | October 4 (99) | October 12 (87) | n/a | n/a |
| 19th century | October 1 (99) | September 30 (99) | September 23 (100) | October 4 (1) | October 7 (86) | October 13 (99) | September 24 (78) |
| 20th century | September 26 (98) | September 24 (90) | September 22 (100) | September 21 (82) | October 6 (83) | October 8 (97) | September 25 (99) |
| 21st century | September 13 (6) | September 9 (7) | September 11 (6) | September 18 (7) | September 27 (5) | September 27 (7) | September 16 (6) |
Data sources
Download the prepared data: harvest-dates.json (256.9 kB)
Files as the visualization uses them. Reuse remains subject to the licenses of the sources above.
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