vintage 2020…

23.7.2020billn

Week 30 2020 - Puligny
Puligny-Montrachet, 22 July 2020

Steady as she goes – and still 3-4 days ahead of the 2003 growing season.

Many in the Côte de Beaune are looking to have their teams back from holidays by Monday 17th August to prepare for their harvest but actual picking around 18th-20th August is not out of the question for the early pickers. The earliest estimated start that I know of in the Côte de Nuits, so far, is 22 August but habitual late-picker Pierre Damoy is thinking more along the lines of 8-25th September, for now.

Puligny 1er rouge!This week we see temperatures of 31-35°C – the first time this year with such consistency of temperature – and for the very first time there are a few yellow leaves starting to appear on young vines – that’s a combination of the heat and dryness – last week’s few mm of rain (3-20mm) hasn’t really done very much. Most vines look in great shape; veraison is underway in most red wine vineyards now and is becoming much more visible in Hautes Côtes too – right, Puligny 1er Clos des Caillerets. Mildew is very rare this year, and as the sugar starts to rise in the berries, those areas with a little oïdium are being less affected.

The last treatments in the vines are largely done now, tractors in the vines more likely to be doing a little trimming of the vines – overwhelming now it’s the start of the domaine holidays…

Food traps have been set up* to follow the evolution of the populations of common fruit flies and their Suzuki cousins – this monitoring will continue until the harvest. There have been, for the last two weeks, some reports of ‘large populations’ of Suzuki close to fruit orchards (cherry, plum, etcetera) but nothing yet in the vines.
*Chambre d’Agriculture

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

There are 2 responses to “vintage 2020…”

  1. Suvro23rd July 2020 at 2:08 pmPermalinkReply

    Curious about “habitual late-picker Pierre Damoy”. Is his vineyard in somewhat special zone, or is he making a different type of wine? What differentiates his grapes that they can be picked so much later than others?

    Also what are Suzuki cousins of fruit flies? During my UG days, I did research on fruit flies – they have taste receptacles on hair on their legs. When they alight on fruits, they can sample fructose and other sugars even before they use their proboscis. And where I worked at Caltech, my colleague Michael Dickinson worked on the sensor fusion of fruit flies – how they combine smell, and very limited vision, to hone in on food sources.

  2. goughie1323rd July 2020 at 4:54 pmPermalinkReply

    Bill is referring to Pierre’s preference for ‘deep maturity’, or full ripeness, in his wines and being well known over time for picking later than his fellow vignerons. Ponsot has had a similar reputation over time as an ‘habitual late picker’. I’ve personally witnessed the teams from both domaines being ‘hard at it’ when pretty much all other domaines locally have finished picking.

    There’s nothing notably ‘special’ or different from the Damoy wines – other than this Gevrey, Cote de Nuits, domaine has a high proportion of grand cru holdings, notably a 5ha+ ‘chunk’ of Chambertin Clos de Beze and consequently has to buy in fruit for ‘lesser’ wines. Nothing differentiates the Damoy grapes other than Pierre’s preference for picking as above.

    Bill references Pierre as an example of a potential Sept harvest start date in contrast to those who are ‘thinking’ late August. Could be (another) interesting year !

    • Suvro27th July 2020 at 12:19 amPermalinkReply

      Thanks goughie13 for your reply. I guess these are the right tail of the curve. Who are on the left tail?

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