Domaine Michel Gros Vendange 2024 – Day 3, Monday 23rd Sept
No more rain overnight with a dry, if grey and cloudy, day promised. Usual c6.30 start for breakfast – for me banana, dried apricots and a breakfast bar – all brought from the UK. Black coffee to wash down; occasionally I’d be ‘reckless’ and have a breakfast tea !
Easy decision to consider my Wellington boots (‘wellies’) to remain appropriate as, even without more rain, the vineyard soils remained damp and ‘sticky’ underfoot from previous precipitation. One of my early morning at the domaine gate pre-departure photos this day might make some of you ‘wonder’ at the attire of a few of the older ladies. The fancy dress, or costumes, represented a pre-vendange email circulating ‘themes’ for particular days. Not something myself, or the vast majority of the workforce it seems, wanted to get involved in – tricky enough working in the vines without nonsensical attire. Each to their own though ! What did please me was the arrival yesterday of my young Italian chap friend (annoys me I can’t recall his name, if I ever knew it) from 2023 with his lovely & super well-behaved/well-trained dog, Acho, a Labrador cross type in appearance. Acho just has one of the loveliest, endearing, calm, placid natures of any dog I’ve ever come across – I was delighted to see them both. Their accommodation, for man and beast, was a large, ancient, Fiat van acting as a quasi motorhome, parked in front of the Mairie, Acho’s nightly bed being the front bench seats – not his master’s bed !
Whilst waiting for ‘kick-off’ departure a distraction from my looking around musings was the cry of a bird. This was a small falcon flying over the domaine buildings but unusually vocal, maybe seeking its mate. In the UK we know such falcons as ‘Kestrels’, quite commonly, and notably, seen hovering over motorway embankments, fields etc. This year I was to see at least one, often two, kestrels over the vines between Vosne and Nuits most days of the vendanges, with it also a year for seeing birds of prey most days in the Hautes-Cotes.
Our small sub team remained intact and continuing to operate autonomously. Pierre Gros’ start of the vendange advices to me that the whole team would come together to work Richebourg Grand Cru had not come to pass as that had been ‘done’ by the rest of the team without us. I wasn’t particularly ‘bothered’ as I’d had that experience in 2023 and found it slightly underwhelming for a storied GC. I was much preferring, and enjoying, the small sub team experience this year, and the differing terroirs we were going to which I’d not seen/experienced in 2023. In that vein our initial destination today first thing was back to Morey-St-Denis and ‘En la Rue de Vergy’ – again ! This surprised me simply because I’d thought we’d finished that yesterday afternoon !!! We returned to the same concrete road corner location above the Clos (des Lambrays) with the vehicles, and walked down slope on the southern edge of the Clos to the plot of the day before. In grey and overcast weather we did two more upslope row passes in this area on very steep, and notably stony (see photo), ground. Some of the grapes here were amongst the best I’d personally seen but there was little or no consistency of quality or volume from vine to vine, row to row. Walking back to the vehicles, picking completed, we had the chance to mingle and chat with the Domaine des Lambrays team who were exiting the higher up, above the road, to the tree line, plot they’d been working in. Perusing my ‘Climats et Lieu Dits’ afterwards confirmed the Lambrays personnel had been in village terroir ‘Les Larrets’. I was much taken with, and slightly envious of, their smart, uniform, mid-dark green polo shirts. I’ve never worked for a domaine with similar – nice touch I thought. Their porters were notable for the curious wheelbarrow-type ‘contraptions’ they were using to bring grape cases to the road/vehicles. These ’wheelbarrows’ were, necessarily given vines row width, quite narrow and at the same time long. Seemed to me they must have been a bit of a tricky ‘nightmare’ to push either uphill, and maybe more difficult downhill, whilst keeping level so their ‘cargo’ wouldn’t spill. The socialising with the Lambrays team was nice – seemed no rush on the part of leaders of either team to move on. Had me thinking how rare this sort of inter-action has been, for me at least, as over 15 harvests I can’t actually recall any previous inter-team mixing of this sort.
From Morey we went further north which, given the domaine’s holdings, had to mean Gevrey – specifically ‘La Platiere’. I believe this was the plot of vines most recently acquired by the domaine but am not able to establish just when that was. On the flatlands eastern side of the D974 as one approaches Gevrey from the south. Located well towards the railway line, La Platiere sits below ‘Grand Champs’, itself below Croix du Champs, and is not, it seems, worthy of a mention in Jasper Morris’ Inside Burgundy book in the pages covering various notable Gevrey village sites. To me, unless it’s the soil, ‘La Platiere’ has little to commend it when looking at the likes of Bourgognes such as Pressonnier and (Arlaud’s) Roncevie.
The weather had improved markedly en route to Gevrey and, parking outside a small industrial shed type building, the only structure for some distance in a ‘sea of vines’, we made our way across a track to a small pile of cases in front of the vines in the sunshine, with high clouds and some blue sky above. The Gros vines (several rows) had been very clearly identified (unusually !) by red and white tape strung across the rows, and additionally, a large piece of white paper had been hung from the tape at its right hand end with ‘Michel Gros’ written on the paper in yellow ink. I was mildly amused at this, never having seen such overt identification – we are usually pointed to the appropriate rows of vines wherever as marked with whatever coloured paint the domaine uses to indicate its ownership – a dirty white for Gros. I could only assume that here whichever of our tractor drivers had previously deposited the cases had gone to the extra effort to clearly identify the target vines. I think, belatedly, we might have only made the one pass here pre-lunch as the rows are very long which is intimidating if one has any level of fatigue ! A slightly amusing incident occurred on departure as I was at the back of van or minibus, having loaded our bits and bobs of plastic water barrels, plastic cups, odd buckets etc but my driver seemingly hadn’t realised I hadn’t embarked and set off without me but, fortunately for me, having only pulled forward a few yards the vehicle was halted by the shouted warnings of my colleagues I was about to be left behind !! Much amusement as I made it into the vehicle – and so back to Vosne.
Post lunch, we returned to Gevrey and undertook two more passes. I was slightly hampered as I’d somehow forgotten my knee pads doh but managed ok without this time. Departing Gevrey I was intrigued where we’d go next but in the possibilities of my thought processes I hadn’t considered Boncourt-le-Bois, or actually the vinous & agricultural areas either side of the main railway line before reaching the above hamlet in the countryside north of Nuits. I was already familiar with the plots of vines we were heading for as Domaine Michel Noellat have vines in both the locations we’d be at this afternoon and I’d worked in those in 2019 & 2020. I’d have happily continued/been at Noellat but, I think for 2022 and since, that charming domaine had moved 100% to employment of contract picking team(s), dispensing with local and intern vendangeurs – a shame (for yours truly particularly as I’d loved 2019 & 2020). I’m assuming that as Michel Gros and Michel Noellat have vines either side of the railway (Bourgogne Cote D’Or I believe) then guess that may be the case for other Vosne domaines.
Both our locations are reached by turning left off the D974 main road (coming south) just after the Le Richebourg & Restaurant La Toute Petite Auberge businesses onto the initially narrow D109G. Our first target site is before, but alongside (very close !) to the railway. Turning off the road to the right before coming to the last few houses before the rail line a track takes one along the rear of those houses to the railway then turns right for a short distance to the vines – ours were just past the railway signal box and another railway associated building which seemed to relate to the overhead power supply. Not one of the most ‘compelling’ terroirs, and for this year, far from compelling grapes in either quality or quantity – in fact pretty poor in both respects and thus a tedious exercise. The only saving grace was we didn’t spend too long here and doubled, or tripled up, to a row it wasn’t too tedious. A close eye was kept on Onyx to be sure he didn’t get too close to the railway. This section of line between Dijon and Beaune (and beyond both I assume) always fascinates me at how busy it is with a wide of variety of very regular train traffic from TGV, local units, and all manner of freight trains. The signalling must be extremely efficient to ensure all runs smoothly. I was particularly intrigued (not that I’m a serious train spotter in the UK or France !!!) to note one passing freight train appeared to be hauled by a UK rail freight company diesel locomotive – I wasn’t aware, other than Eurostar, any UK originating trains operated into France, and not this far south.
Train interest aside, we exited our first underwhelming site, the way we’d come into it and back onto the D109G, and the narrow underpass beneath the railway, following the road immediately right and then, after a sharp left-hand bend, gently upwards onto the wider plateau. From the D109G, the extensive area of vines stretching north into the far distance were on our left, to the right an almost equally extensive area of sunflowers looking very ready for harvesting. Exiting the vehicles we seemed to mill about a while for no apparent reason(s) whilst our leaders sorted themselves out and how/when we got cracking. Arriving, I’d been particularly struck (one could hardly miss it !) by an incredibly large, in relation to the myriad others around it, sunflower – almost ‘triffid’ like. A definite photo opportunity.
Back to our raison d’etre – grape picking ! Well, if any site encapsulated the 2024 vintage (for Gros at least) here we had it (or lack of !). I could hardly believe what we experienced & am now trying to describe. I was paired with another, quiet, older guy with our allocated row on the far right of the plot we were working with unused land to our right. We didn’t so much work our row as just, honestly, walk along it looking for grapes of which there were precious few cum next to none, and what very few there were highly unimpressive and materially mildew affected. Our bemused ‘stroll’ to the end of the row produced an end result of a smattering of poor grapes in my bucket, with the others not much better off. Quite remarkable as I could recall the Noellat years seeing significant volume from vines not too far away. We then moved as a group some yards west to more (all long here) rows. These rows were ‘better’ in a loose sense, as not as ‘bad’ as the first ones, but still the quantity and quality of fruit was poor. All seemed a notable waste of time and effort, and if I’ve ever worked an area of vines were machine harvesting might have been appropriate then here we had it.
By the time we’d finished our ‘efforts’ here and got back to the domaine it was c17.30. There was a suggestion of rain again for Tuesday – we’d see for what, whilst I didn’t realise it would be our last day on the Cote, before heading into the Hautes-Cotes on the Wednesday. Wine at dinner capped a nice end to the day – Vosne 2022 1er cru Brulees – maybe infanticide but very Yum !!!!
MdMdlV