Champagne has had the worst growing season for several decades and the prospects for the 2012 harvest look increasingly bleak. Even with improved weather in the run-up to harvest, expected to start around 20 September, yields will be significantly down on recent years with frost, hail, protracted and uneven flowering and problems with disease all having an adverse effect.
Frosts in mid-April destroyed nearly 10% of the appellation’s crop, with losses as high as 40% in some areas.Â