The champagne harvest is down 40 percent this year, leading to the worst yield in at least four decades, thanks to hail storms and fungus caused by wet weather, according to the French Agriculture Ministry, Businessweek reports. But despite the poor crops, champagne drinkers shouldn’t worry that the low output will cut into their 2013 New Year’s celebrations too much. No, literally -- hail has been falling all over grapes made to make champagne and it’s cutting into the French output of the effervescent beverage. All over Europe, in fact, crops of grapes used to make wine have had a bad season this year, causing the total French grape harvest to decline by 20 percent, including in the well-known wine-producing regions of Burgundy and Bordeaux. Even as French sales dropped, the U.S. champagne market grew 14.4 percent in 2011 while China was up 19 percent.
– Wet weather and hailstorms combined to make this year's Champagne harvest—the real capital C stuff from France—the worst in 40 years, reports BloombergBusinessweek. Damaged vineyards in the Champagne region yielded 40% fewer grapes this year, says an industry spokesman in Paris. The only good news is that this New Year's Eve won't be affected because bottles typically age 15 months. Generally speaking, it's been a lousy year for grapes all across Europe, notes the Huffington Post.