Domaine de la Vougeraie have their harvest log now online.

Moving on, let’s start with today’s update from Mark in Morey:

Bonjour,

Petit dejeuner day 3 a Domaine Arlaud vendange 08.

Thought we had done a fair chunk of Bourgogne Rouge on day 1 mais non !!

We started there again at 7.30 yesterday for another hard morning’s graft. My back was feeling day 1 quite badly and by lunch I was an object of some amusement for my fellow vendangeurs. Am starting to get to know them better now. 2 brothers, Georges et Fernand are in their 70’s but incrdiedibly fit – and so quick along the rows. The peer pressure to keep up is quite something. Tremendous roast pork lunch after rice salad and salade tomatoes from Berthilde Arlaud who’s mass catering is very impressive – a bit different from her dayjob ploughing the rows of vines with one horsepower employee, Nougat, for Arlaud and other domaines – am not allowed to say which, honestly, the family were most concerned it is a secret – bit odd but I recognised a couple of Gevrey names. She seems to have fair demand for her and Nougat’s services .

Tremendous sunny day, really warm a day wore on. After lunch we picked really great looking grapes in 1er cru Millandes (some one said Aux Combottes but Romain corrected this for me in the evening over dinner). He agreed the grapes from the 1er cru pleased them greatly – exceptionnel. We
then went back again to the Borgogne Rouge !!!! And by 5.30 we still haven’t finished it.

Over dinner I fascinated Romain and German stagiste Peter (just started a course at Geisenheim – his parents have an estate in the Rhiengau) with Clive Coates latest book. Fortunately Arlaud gets a strong, favourable mention !!!!

And then to bed before this morning.

Gotta go – 7.10am and still quite dark but v clear sky with star formations visible. My muscles are a bit stiff but the back seems a lot better. We’ll see soon. No idea where we go today yet – variety would be nice.

The Bourgogne Rouge large plot is going north from the village a mile or so – opposite near the top of the slope is a large concrete retaining wall. I’ll try and get a better fix soon.

Mark. G

• 1:15pm: Lovely grapes from Nuits 1er Les Vaucrains this morning. Still had to remove some rot and under-ripe bunches, but good enough that we even put the ‘prettiest’ bunches to one side to add to the tank stems’n all. Later we have our first whites and some red Corton.
• 2:15pm: After a morning of cloudless blue sky, we have some cloud cover – are we seeing a change?
• 4:30pm: Just finished the triage of some Corton grand cru from just out of the village centre. Not that much rot to remove, more concentrating on the unripe – complicated by the presence of quite a bit of pinot gris (pinot beurot) in the mix – but the grapes are not quite as nice looking as those from Nuits this morning. The sun returned, and it’s actually the first time I worked only in a t-shirt. It’s freezing indoors by comparison!
• 7:45pm: Did I mention the whites? They came in as must (already pressed juice direct from the owner) so not much I can tell you. Anyway, we’ve just completed triage of Beaune 1er Les Cras. I’ve seen this come across the table since the hail-damaged 04 and this was not bad at all – some of the most consistently ripe fruit we’ve seen yet, some big chunks of easy to cut rot and again (like the Vaucrins) a couple of bins of perfect whole clusters for depositing at the bottom of the fermenting tank. Another hour or so of clean-up and we’ll be ready for lasagne, Brunello, Clos St.Denis Tres Vieilles Vignes and an (as yet) unchosen white or two – purely for winding-down you understand 😉

News from Domaine Vincent et Denis Berthaut:
We started the harvest last Friday by Fixin Les Crais.
We save quality and quantity thanks to good weather, no rain and sunny days with 18°C tempreratures, who will last till we end …
Best regards, Denis Bertaut

Until tomorrow…