Ah, traditional Burgundy – not the cassoulet, but the cassoulet with La Romanée 😉

The forecast rain was just a heavy downpour of a few minutes overnight, but the weather front had been delayed, so the morning was a mix of sun and clouds – more like 20° than the 25°C of Thursday. We triaged Beaune Les Cras – some rot to remove – and Volnay Les Lurets (from the lower, villages section) before lunch. Because we were expecting some of the worst grapes of the harvest, a new setup was demanded; under our destemmer was another vibrating table to triage the destemmed grapes, also with an ‘air-blade’ attached so that (based on density) shriveled or unripe grapes that had got through the first triage table would be removed. Queue the Mistral 60!

Most vintages are about how effective you triage, and the results looked excellent here!

The first drops of rain began after 1:00pm in Beaune, and the grower in Gevrey was concerned about rot – so decided to bring in their Charmes-Chambertin. With about a 45 minute break we had rain all afternoon, but first more Volnay Lurets and another parcel of villages Volnay before the arrival of our Charmes. The grape size was generally smaller on the older vines part of the Lurets, but a roughly similar amount of triage was needed for under-ripe and some rot. The villages Volnay that followed required just a little less triage, but pretty similar really. The Charmes had some nice small berries, but indeed there was already a little rot – the team worked hard to finish the lot – despite the Charmes being ‘unplanned’. Triage was completed by 21:00hrs – at least an hour of clean-up then required…
 

Mistral in-place

Grapes pre-triage

Post-triage…