Sunday:
The title is a little unfair – despite the pessimistic predictions of the forecasters – we have on-and-off rain all day, but never heavy.
About 2:00pm I find myself in Chassagne loading the picked grapes from 1er Cru ‘Vergers’ onto a truck. Optically they are nothing special, about one in five bunches have some rot – perhaps one in twenty are quite bad; The taste on the other hand is excellent as is the balance of sweetness and acidity. A good (quite easy) trie and all will be well here.
5:00pm and we have 150 cases of bourgogne rouge grapes (from Meursault) arrive at the winery; these in places have rot almost to the same magnitude as we had to triage in 2004, though on average I would say better than 04.
Tonight we deserve a dinner so head to Beaune with ‘Vinotas’, whose day 4 report can be found here. Some bottles are consumed with very above average food at Le Gourmandin in Place Carnot.
There is one response to “weekend rain (part 2)…”
Domaine de la Vougeraie
Sunday 24 September
Day six
A day of rest
Sunday gave our grape pickers a welcome chance to rest their aching limbs before meeting up Monday with the majority of the 50-strong team assembled for the 2006 harvest.
We chose a good day for a break because the rain fell as forecast and the weather was still warm – it’s not just the vines that get a soaking when the showers fall on the Côte. Fortunately, we had our vibrating table to hand when we were sorting yesterday’s harvest. The bunches move along a vibrating conveyor belt which removes the leaves and drains the fruit. This allowed us to take off no less than 25 liters of water, which otherwise would have ended up in the wine. Wine may be 90% H2O, but it should come from the juice and not the heavens.
Despite the overcast weather, all the estates are harvesting now and the vineyards are filled with pickers of every nationality, all adopting the same hunched posture as they share their common task. The roads for miles around are blocked by high-clearance tractors and trucks carefully carrying their precious cargos of grapes from vine to winery, but the Burgundians are a patient people and they accept this annual chaos with good humor and patience – after all, it’s for a good cause.
The only face to appear in the winery this morning was Pierre’s. He came in to rack off the white wines from Vougeot Clos du Prieuré, harvested the previous day. He sampled the still-cloudly juice to strains of Depeche Mode. Yesterday evening, it was the melancholy tones of Serge Gainsbourg that could be heard from the winery. The music provides a backdrop to the peaceful serenity that reigns here before the next rush of red and the impending fermentation time, like the calm before the storm.
Tomorrow, the rain will be back before the good weather returns. The serious work will start and we’re expecting some old hands and some fresh faces. With all this help, we’ll soon be up to cruising speed in the vines, and then in the winery.
Tomorrow, we’ll start work at Les Bollery on the Côte de Nuits, at the foot of Le Clos Vougeot, where the whole team will assemble for the task ahead.
Let’s hope there’ll be a little time left for our daily interview.
A demain!