Ouf – What a day!

We made up for a lack of grapes on Monday, by triaging from 09h30-20h45. But there was lunch and 2 coffee breaks included! I officially felt the hottest, ever, during triage this afternoon – or certainly since the last time it was hot anyway…

We started the day with villages Volnay, and what a start! Just like the Volnay Lurets (which I missed) on Sunday, the vibrating table shook out the vast majority of shrivelled-up, dry berries, leaving very little to triage – so much so that about 1/3rd of the way through, the cry was heard from winemaker C, “We’re going whole-cluster!” Two minutes of man(only)-handling the destemmer out-of-the-way and our ‘giraffe’ was now dumping the (whole cluster) grapes directly into the hopper from our triage table. You can see an image below of one cluster of Volnay with rot and one perfect ‘Facebook’ bunch – the last, although also a hand-picked facebook bunch, gives a better idea of the real berry size 😉

Actually, from 3 pallets of grapes, I saw only two clusters of rot! And the Facebook bunches? Well, there weren’t many of those either! Hail or no hail, this was quite-good fruit that needed minimal hand-triage – just don’t mention the yields per hectare!

Before lunch we began a big cuvée of villages Gevrey-Chambertin. We started with the young vines, which were beautiful in 2013 – this year, definitely not! Here was rot, but very stinky rot – acetic. Some of the grape clusters could be smelled before they were cut from the vines – surprisingly laid-back, winemaker C quips “Well, no whole clusters here – but plenty of SO₂ seems like a good recipe!” Some of our pallets were a little better, but not massively so. After lunch we got the older vine fruit from this same vineyard – almost none of this smelly rot, smaller berries on nicer clusters too. It was only spoiled by some of the later cases of grapes having bunches with oïdium – which (of-course) I weeded-out! So, acetic-smelly rot and oïdium – both I’ve rarely seen before, but this is only my 11th vintage of triage!

Last of the day was Beaune Les Avaux. Also terribly hailed but these bunches had no rot – like the Volnay – except that the dried berries were hardly dislodged by the vibrating table. We had a lot to do, but we went slowly and did a good job I think.

So:

• Manual triage in some cases as simple as 2005, but clearly the starting materials optically much less brilliant.
• The triage table was as sticky in the afternoon, also as in 2005 – but that’s my last reference to 2005!
• I’ve observed some really beautiful grapes, but even in the same vineyard, it’s usually very heterogeneous – which is a bit like 2013 – but maybe Romanée-Conti was better! 😉
• That’s enough useless generalisations for today!

I have to say that my back was pretty unstable after that triage marathon – maybe I’d better train (somehow) before vintage 2015. I anyway decided not to forego my two jogging laps of Beaune, time will tell if that was a mistake!

Bonjour! Tres fantastic day – wow the weather, phew what a scorcher and the grape quality and quantity ? Maybe the best in quality terms I’ve ever seen at Arlaud and Cyprien’s quietly happy I think.

Arrived 16.00 hrs Sunday so had a quick photo session between the Aralud cuverie and the village accommodation. Got talking firstly to Regis Forey and crew in Morey village and then, later, Pierre Amiot and gang in Gevrey 1er Combottes.

Didnt take any this afternoon as we spent most of it (until 17.00 hrs) in Morey village below the RN 74 where the grapes, in my rows at least were just amazing – 2009 all over again ?

For the record today we did, in order :-
Morey 1er Millandes (just by Odoul-Coquard)
Morey ‘Clos Solon’ – Cyprien has bottled it as Clos Solon since 2012 – I want some !!!
Charmes-Chambertin (the best bit, high up, across the road from Latricieres) – super grapes here as well
Lunch – grated carrot thing starter, nice pieces of pork steaks and pasta, tarte au pomme, fromage selection
Morey Village as above
Gevrey 1er Combottes – started at 17.00 hrs – to finish.

Sunday:

Monday. First 3 pics are just scenes . Next three are grape shots from a plot just up-slope very close to the cemetery wall in Rue Tres Girard:

A perfect pic by Caroline l’Estimé of Domaine Jean-Noël Gagnard: Chassagne-Montrachet 1er Les Caillerets today.

Typically, for my first day ‘on the job,’ today there are no grapes at the home domaine!

They started with Volnay Lurets yesterday, harvested under the same benign 22°C and sunshine as we’ve enjoyed for about a week – the weather is set fair for the rest of this week too. One thing I’ve noticed today, though, is a strong acetic waft and lots of small fruit flies when you pass many open (producer) doors. Chilled delivery vans are worth their weight in gold this vintage!

Whilst yields are miserly, I’ve heard nothing but good news from those that have harvested their hailed vineyards – the vibrating tables seem to be taking away all that is dried out, and in the few vineyards in Beaune and Volnay already harvested, there is no rot to worry about – the hail made sure of that – so triage has been very simple. Triage has been harder in Meursault (for those that didn’t machine pick!) with as much as 40% of the crop rejected, but the grapes that remain are delivering smiles all-round.

Finally, for avid students of the vintage, the harvest newsletters of Domaine de la Vougeraie are now online, here.

The last bottles in Switzerland with Team NZ; who are now safely awaiting the first grapes in Beaune.

I made a bit of a booboo on Wednesday afternoon.

I took some really brilliant pictures of the few harvesters who were busying themselves, mainly around Meursault – so much-so that I couldn’t wait to review them – OOPS – the SD card from my camera was still in my laptop. No pics! Dumb, dumb, dumb…

I snapped a few with my phone afterwards, but…

Anyway… Virtually nobody in Volnay and Pommard on Wednesday afternoon – actually one lot in each. Meursault seemed the main focus, though that was also eerily free of white vans. Lafon and Roulot had been in the vines – Meursault Perrières, mainly. Also, of the half-dozen teams who were harvesting, were two harvesting machines, and both were in the 1er Crus! There are producers who, faced with not so brilliant grapes (don’t forget that Meursault was also hailed), would rather harvest by machine than pay for pickers. Although white grapes tolerate machine much better than reds, this might suggest larger quality gaps then usual between the best producers and the others…

Yesterday (Thursday) there were more people in the vines but not massively more than the day before. Temperatures were 4-5°C cooler, but still dry and sunny with about 22° in the afternoon. I left Burgundy in the afternoon, but will be back for triage, first thing on Monday morning. Daily reports will, of-course, follow.

Almost, but not quite, the last of the bottles drunk with Team NZ in Switzerland.

Jasper has a few of the starters:

Heavy rain this am chez moi but not on the vines I think. Lafon starts tomorrow, Ente on thursday…. The build up is under way.

— Jasper Morris (@justjasper) September 9, 2014

Amongst others, also starting Wednesday (today!) is Jean-Marc Roulot and Vougeraie in their white grand crus.
Thursday there’s Domaine des Croix and Dubreuil-Fontaine
Friday it’s JF Fichet, Benjamin Leroux (whites) + + +
Domaine Dublère and Camille Giroud start at the weekend and Bonneau du Martray next week, as do the first of the Côte de Nuits – but some of those Côte de Nuits domaines have no plans to start before the 20th.

There’s been a little rain yesterday and overnight, but the sun is out this afternoon – let’s hope there’s nothing to cajoule the botrytis into action!

A few more from the weekend…

The outriders this week will be the Mâconnais – they will will probably be first in the vines. Later this week, probably from Wednesday onwards, the first of the Côte de Beaune whites will be harvested, though a significant proportion of that will also wait for the weekend or even Monday. Reds will really start from Monday onwards, for 10 days, or even more. Chablis will also largely harvest between 15-20th September – so it looks like I’ll be too busing in Beaune to pay them a visit…

The weather changed last week in the Côtes; July and August were cool and often wet, but almost always with a steady (cold feeling!) breeze – this wind has been reason we’ve seen no rot, only an occasional bout of oïdium in the whites. Last week the breeze stopped and the sun shone – Friday was a perfect 28°C day and so was the weekend that followed. The threat of botrytis still lies within every bunch – but only of we suddenly get rain together with high temperatures. We are currently set fair for the next week, though with temperatures more modestly around 22°C. It looks like we should do well – though triage will be taxing for the hail-hit vines…

I’ll be making daily harvest reports from Monday 15th, here – naturally 😉

Last Friday in the Côtes: