Well that’s the message from the Decanter newsfeed anyway.
Decanter is the best source of wine-related news, but notes like this do them no service. We, (the readers here anyway) already know that things look great, but if Decanter really want to be taken seriously as a news service, rather than repeat, verbatim, industry-body prognostications (marketing communications), they should do some additional investigation of their own – it’s not hard to check the weather forecast is it?
For the record, the vines seem in at least as good health today, as they did at the same stage of maturity in 2005. But it rained quite a bit yesterday and look at the next days’ weather forecast… Looking on the bright side, the cooler temperatures will, to an extent, mollify the opportunity for rot outbreaks.
There are 2 responses to ““burgundy predicts magnificent 2009””
Ok, so being a Burgundy n00b, is rain common during harvest? Since 05 was considered such a benchmark year, what was the weather like during harvest then?
Josh
Hi Josh –
Rain is relatively common in small doses – the 2005 commentary is here. The problem with consistent rain in the days before and during the harvest (at its least insidious) is that it swells the size of the berries so the solids to liquids ratio changes – resulting wines slowly dilute which means some will try to extract harder and maybe add sugar to increase both solid material and alcohol content – neither would make for an elegant result but yields would be up!
At its worst, rain with warm temperatures – say 25°+ would be a breeding-ground for rot. A double whammy if you like i.e. dilution of the grapes and poor sanitary condition of those grapes meaning a significant portion of the harvest would be thrown away.
Anyway, nobody would want too much rain before harvest.
Most amusing is that the google ad link the following to this Decanter prophecy:
http://www.the-end.com/2008GodsFinalWitness/