harvest 2009 – sunday 13th sept

Update 15.9.2009(13.9.2009)billn

beaune 1er cru bressandes
Beaune 1er Bressandes out of the bottom of the de-stemmer

Sunday – and did I mention the weather?

Well yesterday was mainly bright and the still-air temperature was nice and warm – perhaps 23° – but our old friend the harvest north wind was quite blustery and not that warm frankly. Today we have bright blue sky again though perhaps only 21-22°, yet it feels warmer as we have less wind.

Yesterday I popped into Domaine des Croix to see their massive new extension – actually an adjoining building which came up for sale – now for the first time they have somewhere to park their tractor, and probably a plane should they wish! The team had some Beaune Bressandes 1er cru (above) on the triage table and it looked superb. David told me that his Beaune Grèves looked very special, and certainly better than his grapes in 2005! Sunday would see for them the arrival of a new cuvée for the domaine – Corton.

Back to the ‘home team’; 10 a.m. Sunday and we are ready to start the machinery for our 1.4 tonnes of Chassagne-Montrachet 1er Les Vergers. Another innovation this year (more of a just-in-case) is a refrigerated truck to bring the grapes to the winery – and very efficient it is too! Anyway, just like the Meursault of yesterday, we dispensed with the triage table, simply removing the occasional dodgy bunch but mainly leaves. You can see from the picture below, we had to remove only about 7kg from the whole 1.4 tonnes!

After the Chassagne we had Corton Les Rognets and what beautiful grapes and clusters! One third of the quantity was not destemmed – we simply went from the triage table direct into the tank with the first cases, and what a good decision that 1/3 was – the later cases we found were more variable in ripeness so we threw as much as 10% away. Only rarely was rot spotted, certainly less than the Volnay of yesterday – no fauna in the cases either – except for a few honey bees sucking-in a little sugar.

Ah, lunch-time, paté de campagne, Poulet Basque, cheese (very mobile Epoisses indeed) and a lovely almond and pear tart – accompaniment was an Emmanual Giboulet Côte de Beaune ‘Pierres Blanches’ (blanc), a NZ 2006 Bell Hill pinot noir and a 2001 Savigny villages. I was almost too full to drink my coffee 😉

No more grapes today, just cleaning, fermenting and walking in the vines I think! Tomorrow should remain dry, but we could get rain on Tuesday…

UPDATED: With pictures from a walk on the hill of Corton near Pernand around 5 p.m. Followed by a more modest repas! Crocque monsieur, vegetable soup and the obligatory cheese and bread followed by a frefreshing crene fraiche dessert. To keep things running we had 02 Mercurey 1er blanc, 06 Chassagne 1er Vergers and 06 Charmes-Chambertin.

Agree? Disagree? Anything you'd like to add?

There is one response to “harvest 2009 – sunday 13th sept”

  1. Tom Blach13th September 2009 at 5:24 pmPermalinkReply

    Those Corton Rognets grapes look astonishing!

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