On Tuesday, I stopped in Gigondas on my way south from the Alps, encouraged by this and other threads to pick up a few more bottles of S. Rhône ("honest guv, they made me do it"). The vineyards were absolutely parched on the lower plateau. Closer to the village and the Dentelles de Montmirail, the impeccably maintained vines looked a bit better. The informative couple at the Caveau du Gigondas in the village said they'd had a brief but violent shower on Monday night and were waiting for more rain that evening (30 mm forecast) with a mixture of hope and trepidation. He described it as make or break for the 2022. No rain and "ça va être très compliqué", while thunderstorms with hail would be disastrous ofc. Comparisons were made with 1973, which was apparently a very dry and hot summer with abundant autumn rain. This year, they will probably be harvesting way before Sept 21st. I left with some of the Gras family's 2019 production.
In the end, they got rain, lots and lots of it: a total of 116mm, the equivalent of several normal months, in the last 24 hours. But I've not seen any reports of massive hailstorms, so it sounds as if it worked out OK in Gigondas. The Var further east got absolutely hammered, with hail the size of golf/tennis balls reported in Hyères and 120-170mm of rain in various locations. Probably not good news for the many Côtes de Provence producers in the area, incl. Bamford's large château down there. Not sure how the Bandol area coped either.