The Home Team 2011.

So every year there are new cast of players at the home domaine:
– Kiwi Anna, sauvignon blanc winemaker at Oyster Bay
– Kiwi Blair, vineyard manager at Carrick
– Springbok Nathaniel, from Nederburg in Paarl
Plus, of-course, the more regular crew – naturally there is no discussion whatsoever about the up-coming rugby world-cup, only how fetching England look in their new black strip!

Today we started with pinot from Beaune 1er Les Avaux – the vines are a good age, but unfortunately they normally deliver quite a large berry size – big surprise this year when I was expecting cherries, the grapes if anything smaller than the Savigny-Peuillets and Aloxe-Valozières of yesterday; virtually nil rot, but again the annoying 1-3 unripened green berries which need to be removed – from almost every bunch – tsk! Still, I expect a good cuvée from this.

By 11:30 we were ready for our first tranche of Meursault – not quite as tough to triage as yesterday’s (which actually tastes quite okay in the settlement tank), but not fun either – it turns out that there had been hail in this vineyard and whilst there was no obvious hail damage, we had to run the table pretty slow.

Ladybird quotient is perhaps a hint lower than yesterday but there are still many.

Lovely lunch…

Of-course when doing whites you have to wait for the press to finish it’s run before you can start the next lot of triage – it was close to 4pm before we started to remove (just the same amount of) rot; very slow table and and the mercury touching on 30°C. I think in my 8th consecutive year of harvesting, that’s a temperature record. The storms and hail have been put back a day, just like every day for the last 3 – we are certainy lucky compared to Bordeaux…

Just for the record, and as an hommage to the ladybirds, yesterday we consumed:

04 Griotte
04 Latricières
04 Clos St.Denis
04 Carrick Pinot Noir (screwcapped, no ladybirds – like the Griotte – and perhaps the best!)
08 Chassagne Morgeot (red)