36 degrees in the Gironde... Here's what that felt like.
We're going to be honest with you: nobody saw this one coming, at least not in May. The last week of May in Bordeaux is supposed to feel like a generous spring: warm afternoons, cool enough evenings to sleep with the windows open. What arrived instead was something closer to July, and it arrived fast!
Between the 24th and 27th of May 2026, a heat dome (a high-pressure system that traps warm air and refuses to let cooler masses in) settled over western Europe and simply stayed. Temperatures across France rose 10 to 15°C above seasonal norms in the space of a few days. Météo-France recorded nearly 350 broken heat records on a single Monday.
Cap Ferret, less than 70 kilometres from our vines, hit 36.5°C — a number you'd expect in August, by the Atlantic, never in late spring.
In the vineyard
At this time of year, our vines on the Néac plateau are in full vegetative growth. The shoots are extending rapidly, the canopy is building, and the flowering period (one of the most sensitive moments in the entire growing season) is right around the corner. It is, to put it plainly, the worst possible moment for an unexpected spike like this.
The first thing you notice in a heatwave isn't the air temperature, it's the ground. Our clay-limestone soils hold heat differently to sandier terroirs, and by midday the soil surface was radiating warmth back up through the canopy. Soil temperatures in the root zone were running well above what the vines would normally experience in May. Above 30°C, the vines begin to slow. Stomata close to limit water loss, which also means photosynthesis slows. The vine is essentially holding its breath, waiting for the temperature to drop.
"The vines looked fine from a distance. It was only when you crouched down and felt the ground heat rising that you understood the stress they were under."
What we did
The response to a sudden heat spike in a vineyard is partly reactive and partly about what you've already built into the way you farm. Fortunately, several decisions we'd made earlier in the season worked in our favour.
- Canopy management: We'd maintained a fuller canopy going into this period, which meant the grape clusters were naturally shaded by leaf layers, rather than directly exposed to the sun.
- Irrigation timing: We moved irrigation to early morning, before the heat peaked, to give the soil and roots what they needed before stomatal closure set in.
- No treatments at midday: All vineyard work was pushed to before 9am or after 6pm.
- Mulching between rows: Keeping organic matter on the ground surface helps retain soil moisture and keeps root-zone temperatures lower.
Where we are now
The heat dome eased by the final days of May, and cooler Atlantic air finally pushed back in. The vines came through. No significant defoliation, no sunburnt clusters — which, given the intensity of the episode, is a relief rather than a given. The flowering period ahead will tell us more about what this spike ultimately means for the 2026 vintage, but for now, the plateau looks healthy.
What this week reminded us again, is that farming in Bordeaux is not the romantic, unhurried process it might look like from a label. It's attentive work. Watching, adjusting, making calls with incomplete information. The vines don't send messages; you have to go and read them yourself.
We were in the rows every morning during the worst of it. That's the job.