I understand that the Clos de Tart has just started its harvest today, whilst the home domaine is still waiting for their last grapes from the 2012 campaign – Chambertin – they will be picked this afternoon, but that will be too late for me as I’m heading home tonight. The grapes will be quite warm once picked – did I mention that Friday is a dry(!), beautifully sunny and deceptively warm (19°C) day? – so will spend the night in a cooler-van, waiting to be triaged on Saturday morning.

A stroke of luck for the home team is a new contract for Chablis Bougros – particularly with grape volumes being about 40% down. There could have been more grapes, but despite coming from a good grower this was a modest ‘sighter’ of a few barrels worth for experience. The grapes actually looked great as they zoomed along the triage table this morning and directly into the press. Even the 1400 millibars press juice was very tasty indeed and still with a decent acidity – one to watch for…

Finished the afternoon with a walk on the ‘Mountain’ of Beaune and with a few vineyard views from Chaume Gauffriot, south-east into the plain with Pommard just around the corner to the right – plus a friend we picked up along the way…