(Decanter) - Winemakers across France and also parts of Germany, Italy and Switzerland are counting the cost of frost damage in their vineyards after several nights that felt more like January than late April.

• Winemakers lament ‘black Thursday’

• Patchy but serious damage across France, from Loire to Languedoc, and in Germany, Italy, Switzerland

• Vine shoots were left looking like ‘dried tobacco’ – French winemaker

Champagne vineyard managers were among the first to raise the alarm over frost last week, but it has emerged that many regions suffered damage.

The Aude region around Narbonne in Languedoc has been dramatically affected, according to Frédéric Rouanet, president of Vignerons de l’Aude. He told Decanter.com that a ‘large part of the vineyard area was damaged in the Aude. Some vines are totally destroyed’.

In Jura, Hervé Ligier, president of AOC Arbois, estimated that between 30% and 90% of vines suffered damage in the appellation, even in the AOC Château-Chalon.

‘With -2°C, buds have not resisted,’ he said.