home domaine harvest day 1 – 22-sept-2016

22.9.2016billn

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 Not really representative, but good to see how great some gamay fruit can be…

The home team’s first grapes of this 2016 vintage arrived in the dark close to 9pm yesterday evening – all the way from Morgon – so a good 1 and a half hour’s drive away. They overnighted in the refrigerated truck in our courtyard.

It was fresh this morning – blue sky, but clearly a little less than 10°C – and now we could see our grapes. At least in the cases the fruit looked good to very good, and almost indistinguishable from pinot – it would be interesting to see how it looked once it started to cross the triage table – see video below:

  • Gamay processing – the Beaune way 🙂

The fruit needed a little triage work – really just the usual stuff of removing dried berries, some under-ripe bunches and a little rot, but the cases contained no fauna (I smelled but didn’t see 3 or 4 stink-bugs) just rather attractive bunches of grapes. I have to say, the taste of raisined gamay grapes – the stuff we throw away – is really fine, and much tastier than the same from pinot! The first seven pallets of fruit, triaged today, were all destemmed. We have more Morgon being picked today that will again arrive in the evening – this we will probably leave as whole-clusters – but let’s see how it looks tomorrow. I took note today that there was really plenty of sugar in these grapes, as we stuck to the triage table like glue – maybe not so much as 2015 or 2005, but still plenty more than most vintages – let’s see if that’s also reflected in the pinots to come.

From other domaines I heard that both Benjamin Leroux and François Mikulski harvested their Meursault 1er Genevrières today – and both very happy with yields of about 35 hl/ha. The hillside here offering a good return in 2016 – unlike the villages and bourgognes in the flat of Meursault, most of which was sacrificed to the frost at the end of April…

The home team also went out to inspect the vines in Marsannay and Santenay this afternoon – ‘walls of fruit‘ was their summary. These two villages avoided the frost in April, which started to exert itself from Chassagne and northwards. There should be some good stuff on the way from this corner of the Côte d’Or, and with a proper rendement (yield) too.
 

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

There are 4 responses to “home domaine harvest day 1 – 22-sept-2016”

  1. Marko de Morey22nd September 2016 at 8:01 pmPermalinkReply

    Sounds great Bill. Am all packed, car fuelled, ready to set off for Morey in the small hours of tomorrow (Friday) via Dover then on to the Cote. Keenly looking forward to ‘my’ domaine’s grapes, wondering where we will start – Gevrey Combottes is the usual !

  2. musignymike@gmail.com22nd September 2016 at 8:47 pmPermalinkReply

    Please explain to me “Home Harvest Day”
    If its a co op project thats great1

    • billn22nd September 2016 at 9:55 pmPermalinkReply

      Mike. Every year since 2004 I’ve harvested at the same domaine each year – my home domaine.

      I don’t shill, hence, I also don’t spend my time advertising the name of the domaine.

  3. musignymike@gmail.com23rd September 2016 at 3:50 pmPermalinkReply

    Billin,are those pallets,or here they harvest,with a tractor following and dump the grapes into Macro Bins:1/2 Ton,1 Ton or 3 Ton units usually picking in the early morning or nite under llights.
    In Tirage,if they can afford it,they use Optical Tirage units , though in my view doing it with a trained
    crew is betterr Question is availability of labor and costs per unit! Again Bean Counters!

  4. musignymike@gmail.com24th September 2016 at 2:37 amPermalinkReply

    Billin, when I said “explain” it thought you were helping with the harvest at a winery…and perhaps making wine for yourself and wasn’t concerned with name of the winery. I’ve had and enjoy Morgons, and also Chenas.

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