2024-08-21 04:00:20
Is Moroccan wine doomed to disappear? Such a scenario recently caused producers in the Sharif Kingdom to shrug their shoulders, but reality eventually overwhelms even the most optimistic. “Water stress”In 2024, Morocco will experience its sixth consecutive year of drought and repeated heat waves, with temperatures approaching 50°C in July and August.
The most alarmist, French oenologist Jacques Poulain, said rising temperatures and water shortages put the country’s vines at risk of extinction. “It’s a disaster. The vines I have planted for less than 20 years are dying.”This worries the chief winemaker of La Ferme Rouge, the second largest winery in the market, which covers about 30 hectares and produces 6 million bottles of wine a year.
Located in the Zaër wine region, an hour south of Rabat, the winery, which Jacques Poulain joined in 2008 with Amine Sourelah, the son of a Moroccan general, has borne the brunt of global warming. “No normal rainfall has occurred since 2018”The Arcachon people passing through Bordeaux assured that this year’s rainfall was only 180 mm, compared to 700 mm seven years ago. “We store water in ponds over the winter and release it in the spring as needed, but the ponds have been empty for four years. »
Contradictory situation
Three days above 38°C and vines “There has been a breakdown” Over the course of nine days, he explains: “The juice blocks and grapes are no longer nourished. » Nine days of extreme heat will delay the harvest by three weeks. The result: a smaller harvest. “Normally, the yield is between 7 and 10 tons per hectare. Today, if we can produce 4 tons, we are happy. »
Half an hour’s drive south of Meknes, in the foothills of the Middle Atlas Mountains, Domaine de Baccari, a half-century-old family vineyard planted with about 20 hectares of French grape varieties, is also currently experiencing the effects of climate change. Harvest there has already begun, and the weather is not expected to be as severe this year, but the memory of the hot summer of 2023 is still vivid.
“We harvested at 49°C, it was a nightmare””, Nahla Bahnini immediately announced. The French-Lebanese, former director of Saint-Gobain, founded her own brand together with her Moroccan surgeon husband with the help of star wine consultant Stéphane Derenoncourt. In 2015, the couple released their first bottle. The estate now produces an average of 80,000 units per year.
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