Champagne on course for earliest harvest start date ever

Following an unusually early and heavily frost-damaged start to the season, followed by recent heatwave conditions, Champagne could be on course for the earliest start date for harvesting in its long history.

According to the region’s newspaper L’Union, and confirmed to db last week by representatives from Champagne Canard-Duchêne and Louis Roederer, picking is scheduled to begin on 15 August, although some warmer sites could begin harvesting five days earlier.

Speaking to db on Friday following 250th anniversary celebrations, Champagne Louis Roederer cellar master Jean-Baptiste Lécaillon said that the official start date is 15 August, but “some places may start a few days before, such as Montgueux, which is an exceptionally sunny site.” Montgueux is a chalk hill located 10km west of Troyes in the Aube department, sometimes called the ‘Montrachet of Champagne’ for its unusually ripe Chardonnay.

Should picking begin on 10 August in Montgueux, that would mark the earliest harvesting on record in Champagne, with Lécaillon noting that some had started bringing in grapes as early as 13 August in 2020, following an extremely hot summer – although the official start date that year was four days later.

2026 set to surpass 2020 record

The earliest official start to harvesting in Champagne on record is 2020, when picking began on 17 August. Next earliest is 2003, on 18 August – itself the first August start since 1822, when picking began on 20 August.

Other August harvests include 2007, 2011 (19 August) and 2018 (20 August), while last year – another hot vintage – was officially begun on 20 August, although Montgueux was granted a derogation to begin on 19 August.

Speaking further about this year’s conditions, Lécaillon noted that the grapes were healthy, with bunches “forming well,” and, despite the hot dry conditions, “due to the cretaceous chalk [sub soils], there is no water stress.”

Bank holiday beginnings

Meanwhile, Champagne Canard-Duchêne managing director Jérôme Durand told db during a tasting in London last week that this year’s harvest “would start almost one week earlier than last year’s – and that was a very early start.”

He also said that it was unfortunate that a proposed official launch date for harvesting was 15 August, as “it is a bank holiday in France,” before noting that it would be a challenge should current weather conditions continue to ensure that sugar levels in the grapes didn’t rise faster than the flavours ripen in the berries.

The maison’s winemaker, Cynthia Fossier, added that “Today the vineyard is beautiful, but the temperature is too high,” adding, “We had frost, which meant we lost 40% of the harvest, and now, with what is remaining, there is a risk of sun burn [on the bunches].”

Warmth, then frost, now heatwaves

Aside from recent heatwave conditions in Champagne, the harvest is expected to be abnormally early in 2026 due to especially early flowering and fruit set in the region, followed by three extreme spring frosts that destroyed on average 40% of the early buds on the vines – with losses ranging from 25% in less-affected areas to as much as 85% in the northerly Aisne.

In this sense, so far, the vintage is similar to 2003, when a brutal series of frosts dramatically reduced yields at the start of the season, later followed by a now-legendarily hot summer.

For 2026, it is expected that the region’s natural yield – as opposed to the commercialisable level set by the Comité Champagne – will fall below 9,000kg/ha, representing fewer than 290,000 bottles (which is still higher than global shipments for 2025, which reached 266 million bottles).

Finally, should this month and the next bring unexpectedly cold weather, the official start date for harvesting could be put back towards 28 August at the latest.

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