The Battle to Save Burgundy’s Vineyards From Extreme Weather

Hail. Frost. Drought. Rain. Wildfire. Extreme weather threatens vineyards around the world with increased frequency each year, menacing vines, grapes, and people. This is especially true in Burgundy, which has been spared from the fires that have ravaged other regions, but the region has seen out-of-season cold snaps, untimely precipitation, soaring summer temperatures, and sustained drought in the last decade. To save their vines and their livelihoods, winemakers and viticulturists across all of Burgundy are simultaneously turning to modern technology and ancient ways of farming to prevent disaster in their vineyards. A combination of high-tech equipment like electromagnetic soil monitors, weather stations, and electric tractors paired with traditional agricultural methods such as biodynamic farming, organics, and agroforestry helps wineries bolster vine health in a way that improves their wine’s quality and subdue the effects of climate change.

At Domaine du Cellier aux Moines in Givry, located in the heart of the Côte Chalonnaise in southern Burgundy, domain owner Philippe Pascal approached the problem by looking at dirt. Starting with the historic Clos du Cellier aux Moines—the walled vineyard in the center of the winery’s holdings that Cistercian monks first planted back in the 12th century—Pascal wanted to go deeper than the monks who’d laid the groundwork for Burgundy’s appellation system by observing how individual plots performed. Pascal became interested in the work of renowned Chilean soil and vineyard expert Pedro Parra and his French research partner Paul Krug, and wanted to apply a modern, scientific approach to vineyard mapping, too. So he tested the soil’s electrical conductivity to help understand the geologic differences within the estate. “The results were beyond our expectations,” he tells Robb Report. “The soil electricity conductivity mapping of Clos du Cellier aux Moines has helped us to better understand the soil variations at the depth of 1.5 meters, from which most of the roots are getting their minerals.”

Pascal had made the decision to stop chemical treatments and transition to organic farming when he acquired the domain in 2004, achieving organic and biodynamic certifications in 2020 and 2023, respectively. Pascal and technical director Guillaume Marko try to anticipate, identify, and solve problems using natural methods. Biodynamic techniques such as spraying vines with an infusion of yarrow and fermented extract of burdock—both natural herbs that are used by alternative medicine practitioners—help the vines to resist heat stress, an important preventative method during extremely hot summers. And the estate’s more fertile, natural soil is filled with helpful bacteria, insects, worms, and a network of fungus that also help to resist drought. “Becoming better farmers and more proactive viticulturists, with better understanding of our terroir, has improved the quality and natural energy of our grapes,” Pascal says.

In Chablis, the famed Chardonnay region in the north of Burgundy, winemaker and viticulturist Julien Brocard slowly transitioned to biodynamic farming shortly after he began managing the vineyards at his father’s estate, Jean-Marc Brocard, in 1997. Although his father was skeptical at first and only consented to converting a small portion of their holdings, the results were noticeable almost immediately. “After we made the conversion, my father’s friends and the importers and distributors began to say, ‘Wow, these wines are spectacular,’ and my father said that it was time for me to take over,” Brocard tells Robb Report. His family has almost 500 acres of vines in the region, and in addition to transitioning a large part of the estate to organic and biodynamic, Brocard also began planting dense groves of trees, an approach known as agroforestry, to help expand the forms of life within their vineyards. “The main problem in Chablis is monoculture: we only grow one grape, so we need to bring in biodiversity,” he says.

Having planted 17 acres of trees among his vines—with another 25 on the way—Brocard has observed a dramatic change. “Wildlife is coming back,” he says. “We have 25 varieties of trees and a variety of plants that flower all year to bring bees and other insects in.” And while trees seem like they’d take much-needed available groundwater away from the vines, that hasn’t happened. “The trees attract birds, insects, and other animals, and the roots maintain a certain humidity, so they don’t compete for water,” he says. Brocard is aware of what is going on beneath the surface thanks to a network of soil monitors, and he keeps an eye on the external environment with a collective weather station shared by 15 producers. Now in charge of both viticulture and winemaking at Jean-Marc Brocard and his own smaller brand, Julien Brocard, he limits carbon emissions using a combination of technology and old-fashioned farming. Vineyards are worked with two electric tractors, and he maintains cover crops between the vines to protect against sun and drought. “Sometimes we have three wet months and then three dry months and this is a way to protect the soil,” he says. Additionally, the cover crops also help prevent frost damage, which is another risk with unstable weather patterns.

Weather stations also help winemakers determine how to defend against threats such as mold, mildew, and other pests. Laurent Pillot, proprietor of Domaine Fernand et Laurent Pillot in Chassagne-Montrachet, says with the use of sophisticated weather monitoring equipment he “can adapt organic treatments based on rainfall, which can vary greatly between different areas.” He explains that by working with a tractor equipped with cutting-edge technology, he can be exacting in applying treatments directly onto vine leaves. “In organic viticulture, we mainly spray with sulfur, micro-doses of copper, and multi-flower teas,” he says. “Disease control treatments are therefore ineffective if we are not extremely precise in our work.” Having forgone chemical weedkillers for 15 years and cultivated his vines organically for five, Pillot points out the benefits of allowing more than just grapes to flourish in his vineyards: “From July, we let the grass grow until March of the following year. As a result, it absorbs large amounts of CO2 from the atmosphere and helps fight global warming.”

These all seem like small measures, but collectively they add up. Brocard says some of his neighbors are catching on to the idea of agroforestry, and Pascal points out that one of the reasons he chose to work with biodynamic-certifying body Biodyvin is that sharing experiences is valued and encouraged among its members. While Domaine du Cellier aux Moines is currently the only estate in Givry that is certified biodynamic, Marko and Pascal are inspiring others in the region to jump on the bandwagon as well. It may be too late to prevent the ravages of climate change from permanently altering our planet, but with a carefully modulated combination of cutting-edge science and time-honored, chemical-free farming practices, the winemakers of Burgundy may be able to keep making some of the best wine in the world for years to come.