2026-08-17
Exceptional grape harvests in Burgundy are no longer rare events but part of a new pattern driven by climate change, according to Thomas Labbé, a co-author of a major study that traced harvest dates in Beaune back to the 14th century.
Labbé said that after another hot growing season and what French media have described as a record-early harvest this year, “the exceptional has become the norm.” His remarks, reported in France this week, point to the growing pressure that heat and drought are placing on one of the world’s best-known wine regions.
The study at the center of the discussion, published in 2019 in the journal Climate of the Past, examined harvest dates in Beaune from 1354 to 2018. Written with five other researchers from institutions including the University of Bern and the University of Burgundy, it has drawn renewed attention as Burgundy again faces unusually warm conditions.
Its findings were stark. From 1354 to 1987, grapes in Beaune were harvested, on average, from Sept. 28 onward. During the 31-year period from 1988 to 2018, when warming accelerated, harvests began 13 days earlier on average.
That shift matters because grape harvest dates are widely used by climate researchers as a long-term indicator of spring and summer temperatures. Warmer seasons tend to speed the growth and ripening of grapes, pushing harvests forward. For growers and winemakers, that change can alter the rhythm of the season and affect decisions in the vineyard and cellar.
The Burgundy data set is one of the longest homogeneous records of grape harvest dates in the world. The paper found that very early harvests, once scattered and unusual, have become much more frequent in recent decades. Of the 33 harvest dates that fell below the fifth percentile, 21 occurred between 1354 and 1719, and only four were recorded between 1720 and 1987. By contrast, eight such extreme early harvests occurred in the last 30 years covered by the study, with three between 2000 and 2010 and five between 2011 and 2018.
The authors wrote that those recent years likely included the warmest growing-season temperatures seen in the record since 1354. Their conclusion was direct: past warm extremes were atypical, but in the present climate they have become normal.
Labbé has sharpened that message in recent comments. Since 1988, he said, the signal of change has been clear, and it has become stronger in the 21st century. Of the 10 hottest years in the Beaune series since 1354, he said, four came in this century: 2003, 2018, 2020 and 2025. He added that 2026 may soon be counted among them.
He also described what he called “an explosion of extreme recurrences.” According to the figures he cited, exceptionally hot growing seasons occurred about once every 17 years between 1354 and 1719. Between 1719 and 1987, the frequency fell to once every 53 years. From 1988 to 2000, it rose sharply to once every five years. Over the past 25 years, he said, exceptionally hot seasons have occurred about once every two and a half years.
The study also made an important distinction. It noted that heat and drought do not always produce the earliest harvest dates, because in severe conditions vine development can slow or even stall. Researchers pointed to historical examples such as 1540 and 1473, when drought was also intense. Even so, the broad pattern over recent decades remained clear: the clustering of very early harvests stands apart from the rest of the seven-century record.
The climate signal is now being felt beyond the vineyard. FranceInfo, the national broadcaster, reported this week on water shortages in the villages of Quincy-le-Vicomte and Quincerot, between Dijon and Chablis. Drinking water is currently being delivered there by tanker truck. The report used a phrase that captured the severity of the situation: water, it said, would become more expensive than wine.
A resident interviewed by the broadcaster said he had never seen a drought like this and that conditions were getting worse each year. The comment echoed a wider concern across French wine regions, where growers are dealing not only with heat waves but also with water stress, earlier ripening and more compressed harvest windows.
In Burgundy, those pressures come at a time when the region’s wines remain among the most valuable in the world, and when even small changes in harvest timing can carry economic and cultural weight. Beaune, the town at the center of the study, is deeply tied to the history of Burgundy wine, making the long archive of harvest dates especially useful both to historians and climate scientists.
What makes the Beaune series so important is not only its length, but the way it links agricultural practice to a record of changing weather over centuries. In most years before the late 20th century, very warm seasons appeared as outliers. Now, according to the study and Labbé’s latest remarks, repeated heat extremes are shaping the basic pattern of the growing season.
French regional newspaper Sud-Ouest described the research this week as groundbreaking, drawing in part on reporting from Agence France-Presse. The renewed focus on the study comes as Burgundy faces another summer that appears to support its central warning: what was once exceptional in the vineyards is happening far more often, and with growing force.