The 2025 wine-growing season looks promising in Champagne. The vineyards are relatively homogeneous thanks to generally mild weather conditions that have limited fungal diseases.
While the vineyards offer promising prospects, the global economy is still characterised by uncertainty and instability. Consumers are also increasingly unpredictable. That is why the Comité Champagne recently announced that the 2025 harvest will be set at 9,000 kg/ha, which, it says, will allow production to be adapted to market conditions. This annual decision is taken jointly by the grape growers, independent producers, and the houses, but that does not mean that they always agree.
The houses are concerned about the large stocks that the Champagne region currently has (4.8 annual productions) and this is one reason why they want to keep the harvest low. They were arguing for an even lower limit this year.
Some of the independent producers (who make “grower champagnes”) sell everything they make and would have preferred a higher yield of 11,500 kg/ha which probably is more in line with the volume that will hang on the vines when it is time to harvest.
This strange annual market manipulation of limiting yields to keep prices up (a bit like OPEC) thus resulted in a compromise of 9000 kg/ha this year in spite of an agronomic yield that is likely to be much higher.
Will it be a repeat of 2020 and 2021?
In 2020, a very low yield was decided (to keep prices up) despite having large quantities of very good quality grapes, which resulted in growers being forced to throw a large part of the harvest on the ground (literally). The following year, 2021, the weather was bad and many had a shortage of grapes and swore at everything they had throw away the year before and lost.
Read more about harvest and yield in Champagne:
- 2020
- 2021
- 2023
- 2024
- Historical overview: A brief history of Champagne yields – Or “victim of your own success”
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Travel: Come on a wine tour to Champagne with BKWine. (PS: We’ve written a prize-winning book on Champagne.)
