In the Aude ravaged by fires, winegrowers appeal to herds to save their vines

The whole harvest is screwed up. In this month of September, while everywhere in France the harvests are busy in the vineyards, Olivier Verdale looks at his rows of vines as a deserted field. No clusters to be cut, no tanks to fill: only grapes burned by smoke. In his right hand, a brown and dry cluster. In the left, brilliant grapes, but just as inevitable: “smoke has destroyed the fruit”, lets go of the winegrower of Saint-Laurent-de-la-Cabrerisse (Aude).

From August 5 to 23, Aude has experienced its worst fire for half a century. A death, 1,300 firefighters mobilized, and 17,000 hectares, including 900 vines, who left for smoke, according to the prefecture of the department. Two weeks later, from acrus odors still emanate from calcined trunks that dot the apocalyptic landscape. And yet, without the vineyards and their fire cutting power, the balance sheet could have been even heavier. For Olivier, “the vine has sacrificed itself”.

Highly flammable wasteland

Faced with the risk of fire in the south, it has always played a part of the partition. But for seventy years, the Languedoc vineyard has been weakened: after the massive expansion of the 1950s, the saturated markets led the State and the European Union to subsidize uprooting campaigns. The drop in French consumption and climatic vagaries accentuated economic dropout. In Occitania, where agricultural income is among the lowest in France, this crisis fed the peasant rumble of 2024. Little by little, thousands of hectares have been abandoned or torn off, giving way to highly flammable wasteland

In 2018, the Aude department estimated at 15,000 hours the surface of wasteland that appeared in twenty years. “These spaces browse the plains and are important relays for the spread of fire,” warns Éric Rigolot, engineer at the National Institute for Research for Agriculture, Food and the Environment. In a landscape where each hectare counts, they transform the slightest spark into uncontrollable fire.

But Debroussailler is expensive, and state services sometimes slow down permissions, in the name of biodiversity protection. The vineyard plot that adjoined those of Olivier Verdale, abandoned twenty-five years ago, is thus left in smoke, the heat damaging the vines of its neighbor.

Sheep and meat goats

How to make such a disaster will not happen again? A few kilometers away, Alexis Gaudin and Émilie Gal, head of the Roquenégade domain, were spared from fire. The two winegrowers installed for five years have chosen to diversify their activities: they replaced 6 hectares of vineyards with pistachiers, but above all, 20 hectares of wasteland gave way to pastures for their sheep and meat goats. “The sheep lowers the vegetation, and thus limit the risk of spreading,” they explain. The couple benefited from the help of the Life Biodiv’Paysanne, a preservation program for natural spaces that financed clearing operations. Their experience shows that it is possible to recreate, on a small scale, open landscapes slowing down the garrigue.

Encourage breeders

The return of pastoralism is a privileged track to protect the Mediterranean land from fires. “Until 1945, all the hills were dotted with small herds,” explains Guillaume Portal, breeder in Thézan-des-Corbières. His farm was also preserved from the fire thanks, in particular, to the 15 hectares of pasture which surround him. Formerly shaped by animals, these landscapes remained open, preventing the garrigue from invading the places and becoming a powder. He would like the municipalities more to encourage the installation of breeders, by supporting pastoral land associations.

In terms of winegrowers, professionals are aware of the need to change practices. “But Berger is not our job, and the activity must be profitable,” explains Olivier – he is concerned about the agreement between Mercosur and the European Union, which will compete with Argentinian or Chilean wines.

Anaël Peyrou, director of the Cellier des Demoiselles cooperative, confirms: “We cannot change practices overnight.” His cellar brings together families in the profession for eight generations. He lost 80 % of his harvest in the fire. “It’s been twenty years since we warn that a fire will happen,” he said. What if the Corbières became a pilot area in France?