Vintners despair after French wildfire ravaged grapevines

Winemakers are taking stock of the damage after a wildfire blazed through a once-picturesque nature reserve near the French Riviera

LE CANNET-DES-MAURES, France -- After a wildfire blazed through a once-picturesque nature reserve near the French Riviera, winemakers who grow the region’s celebrated crop are taking stock of the damage. Rows of charred grapevines stand next to a vast expanse of steaming black vegetation devastated by the fire, which raged for a week in late August. The blaze left two people dead, injured 27 and forced some 10,000 people to evacuate around the Var region, not far from the famed coastal resort of Saint-Tropez. At least one small wine estate saw its vines completely destroyed. And the grapes that survived may be too smoke-damaged to produce a sellable wine. Pierre Audemard of the Domaine de la Giscle vineyard lost his cellar full of stock and his equipment in the fire. "We're receiving hundreds of messages from people who want to buy our wine, but we have nothing left,” he told local broadcaster France-Bleu.