Overall the Bordeaux harvest is 3.3 million hectoliters; in 2016 the Bordelais made 5.8m hl. But that figure of just over half a normal harvest covers a million discrepancies. Olivier Bernard of Domaine de Chevalier says that at the top of one parcel in his vineyard there was no frost, but 50 meters away and three meters lower down, there was 100 percent frost. The difference in temperature between the two was just half a degree Celsius.

The reason the frost was so destructive was that there had been a warm start to spring and the vines had budded early; by April 27, when the damage was done, there was still time for the vines to produce a second crop of clusters and even a third, but these grapes were never going to be good enough for anyone’s grand vin and had to be removed before crushing. Optical sorting tables came into their own, since the difference was often not clear to the human eye.