Al wordt er tot nog toe over gezwegen, is de kans groot dat de Italiaanse oogst 2012 in Toscane lager zal uitvallen door de recente vorstschade. Zo meldde Montalcino een week lang nachttemperaturen van min 16 tot min 18 graden. Twee dagen geleden was het landschap, zoals Wijnwijs.eu daar zelf kon vaststellen, rond Montepulciano nog geheel besneeuwd en was de dooi nauwelijks begonnen. Ook in Rusland heeft de vorst (veel) schade aangericht. Gevreesd wordt dat in de helft van de wijngaarden de oogst 2012 als verloren moet worden beschouwd. Verschillende producenten hebben al een beroep op de regering gedaan om steun. Decanter verzamelde nog de volgende gegevens uit Rusland en Dagestan:

Russian producers are calling on the government to avert a crisis as the worst winter weather in half a century has wiped out up to half this year's wine harvest.
winter weather

The federal government to take action, one producer said, with another warning, ‘Everybody was on the brink of a wipe-out.’

Temperatures dipped as low as as -30C in some areas, with Chateau Le Grand Vostock, based in Krasnodar’s Krymsk district, recording 15 days with an hourly average temperature of -15C – and three nights below -20C.

‘It is really the limit of resistance for vitis vinifera – especially Merlot – even if we cultivate them with a plough,’ winery director Frank Duseigneur said.

‘The weather is milder and we are now pruning again … The reality of the damage will only be seen in May.’

In Dagestan, leading brandy and fortified wine producer Citadel, whose vineyards are the most southerly in Russia, saw about 600ha of young vines destroyed – described by Citadel’s Oxana Oldakovskaya as ‘the most promising plots’.

‘In 2007 everyone was speaking about the cold, but it was only two days,’ said Villa Romanov owner Andrey Romanov.

‘This year we had some two weeks of bitter cold … We will probably have only half our normal harvest. This would be a good moment for our government to step in.’

Pavel Titov, of sparkling wine producer Abrau-Durso, said it was too soon to assess the full damage, but 40-50% of the area’s harvest had probably been lost.

Abrau-Durso itself had been less affected, since its vines were sheltered from the biting wind and protected from the freezing rain by being covered in snow.

‘We will definitely see dead vines this year in places less protected and closer to the [Black Sea] coast,’ Titov added.

‘Right now it is difficult to speculate how much, but everybody was on the brink of a wipe-out.’