Over the past year, bats have gone from unloved animal to devastating threat, thanks to their suspected role as the original carriers of Covid-19 before the novel coronavirus hopscotched to humans. Yet in Bordeaux, one of the world’s top wine regions, they’re being welcomed as heroes.

Writing in a recent Bloomberg blog, Ross Kenneth Urken reports: “As the 2020 harvest started early, a lot is riding on the region’s vintage amid a spate of challenges. After the United States imposed a 25% tariff on several varieties of European still alcohol last October, the value of Bordeaux wine fell 46% in November, with total sales volume dropping 18% according to the Bordeaux Wine Bureau. Covid-19 has exacerbated these difficulties: High-quality 2019 reds are going for as much as 30% less than the previous vintage, because the pandemic hobbled sales.” The pests, European grapevine moth and Grape berry moth, are what inspired Bordeaux winemakers to turn to local bats to help save the day. While studies are still determining how much the winged mammals have helped boost harvest yields and quality, the region’s winemakers have embraced them, figuratively speaking. Other renowned French wine regions are taking note.

Urken goes on to relate: “Last fall, I traveled to Château Lapelletrie in Saint-Émilion to see the animal-assisted winemaking first-hand. Anne Biscaye, a ninth-generation vintner with the aspect of Juliette Binoche, led me underground, into a former quarry, to check out her collaborators. A pair of bats soon flew overhead. At night, dozens would join them to roam above the vineyard in search of insects.

Biscaye is one of several vintners installing wooden nesting boxes around their properties, adding watering holes and leaving grassy strips between vine rows to create a bat-friendly habitat. They are participating in a long-term scientific study to confirm the impact of local bats on two of the most invasive vineyard pests: the European grapevine moth and grape berry moth. Both lead to botrytis, a destructive gray rot.”

Cécile Mallié-Verdier, the winemaker at Château Brethous in Camblanes-et-Meynac says that by eliminating the moths that create gray rot, she can avoid the moldy grapes that might taint her wines, such as the merlot-cabernet sauvignon blend: Cuvée Arpège. She thinks bats may improve overall wine quality and taste as well by obviating the need for some pesticides that risk harming the grapes aromatic profile.

“Nature has become a real partner of the Bordeaux winemakers,” says Bernard Farges, President of the Bourdeaux Wine Bureau. “Bats are the perfect example of a win-win situation.”

Château Lapelletrie’s, Biscaye is firm in dismissing fears of bats caused by the coronavirus pandemic. “I decided to accept working with nature and—from it—let everything take its place,” she says. “Bats, just like birds, are our friends.”

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Burgundy has become the site for some of the most harrowing tales in wine cinema. A devastating frost wipes out a vintage. An international supervillain stages an elaborate fraud. But few match the potential Pinot (film) Noir intrigue of “Shadows in the Vineyard”, a true wine drama of threatened vine sabotage and a high-stakes ransom on perhaps the most hallowed ground in wine: the vineyards of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti (DRC). Earlier this month, the film company, Landmark Studio Group announced that production would soon begin on a story that will strike fear in the heart of any Burgundy lover.

Adapting Maximillian Potter&rsqo;s book of the same name, the limited TV series “Shadows in the Vineyard” will dramatize the 2010 exploitation case that rocked the iconic estate and all of Burgundy. In January of that year, co-owner Aubert de Villaine received anonymous letters threatening to poison and destroy DRC‘s acclaimed, incalculably valuable vineyard, the Romanée-Conti grand cru monopole, unless a $1.2 million ransom was paid.

Writing in Wine Spectator’s “Unfiltered” blog, Colin Dreizen reports that: “The 2015 book ‘Shadows in the Vineyard,’ provides the foundation for the series. Noah Wyle and Judith Light have signed on to co-star. What followed was a saga unfolding in the usually quiet Côte d’Or.” “Max’s story is many things,” co-producer David Ozer of Landmark Studio told Unfiltered via email. “It is a mystery, a love letter to Burgundy. But I think what the creative team loves is the fact that it is a story of hope—of light triumphing in the face of darkness.” The producers also indicated the story will explore the writer Potter’s own transformative experiences, and a new appreciation for wine, gained during his time in Burgundy researching the book. “Production is planned to start in early 2021. While specific locations have not been decided yet, the producers would ideally film in real-life Burgundy”, Dreizen writes, Potter will be revisiting the story as a co-writer of the screenplay, and his team hopes to involve DRC and Burgundy locals as much as they can. “What the people of Burgundy went through during this event was a real trauma, in many ways,” Ozer said. “We want to respect that.”

But it wouldn’t be much of a wine drama without, well, wine. Wine will be central to “Shadows in the Vineyard”; and the team will be turning to expert wine consultants to get every element right. “We think that this is an incredibly complex, multifaceted story and, like a wonderful grand cru, there is so much to savor here,” Ozer stated. “It needs time to breathe, so as to allow all of these intricate elements to be fully realized.”

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