Domaine Michel Gros Vendange 2024 – Day 4, Tuesday 24th Sept
All the usual suspects at breakfast this day; older individuals, mostly longtime regulars, and including Philippe Durand – probably my favourite colleague along with Acho’s Italian owner. Philippe is an older guy family man from Belfort & I believe has, or had, a senior position with his local Sapeur Pompiers. For me he’s immensely likeable. His vendange role is as one of the principal tractor drivers. He’s always immaculately and neatly turned out & neat in everything he does, including eating his breakfast for which he has a very smart folding Laguiole knife to trim his fruit. Philippe is also my ‘weather man’ & today, first thing over breakfast was adamant in response to my enquiry that there’d be no rain today.
Our initial destination on this grey, overcast morning was a similar surprise as yesterday when we’d returned to Morey En la Rude de Vergy which I’d thought we’d finished the day before. Today, with a personal sinking feeling, having been glad to exit yesterday, we went back to the plateau of Boncourt (le Bois) beyond the railway line for more Bourgogne Rouge fruit. After the quasi horror show, largely waste of time/effort of yesterday, to day was rather better & ‘more like it’; if the grapes weren’t ‘great’ at least there were some. Our work here took us to mid-morning but, you guessed it, despite Philippe’s confident over breakfast weather assertion, as neared the end of our session we were lightly showered/rained on – and guess who had no rain jacket or hat ?
Our next destination was familiar from 2023 but w. hat wasn’t ‘familiar’ was our route to it and for quite a while I was baffled where we might be headed for. Our Renault minibus, chauffer Fabian, followed sub team leader Louis in the domaine’s large white ancient panel van. Louis took THE most circuitous route one could imagine to, ultimately, the south side of Nuits-St-Georges. Initially he headed east away from Boncourt & Vosne on the D109G which led us past the Aerodrome de Nuits-St-Georges with a couple of light aircraft and a helicopter on the apron, then turning on to the D116 into the eastern suburbs of NSG, briefly onto the D8 main road as leads to the Autoroute or into NSG Centre, then weaving through what seemed backstreets, past the Gare (Railway Station) de NSG, and ultimately onto the D35 to its junction with the D(RN)974, just south of the ibis NSG Hotel. Bizarre ! I’m guessing Louis was seeking to avoid the main road through NSG and its, to me, infamous traffic light controlled junction on the north side where the Moillard premises are. So convoluted was Louis’ route, albeit impressive in terms of local knowledge/geography, that for a time I was wondering if he was seeking to ‘kill’ time ! We were headed for the Gros plot of village NSG Les Chaliots as borders the D974 & has NSG 1er cru ‘Les Poirets’ above it. This plot is the only one south of NSG owned by the domaine. Its notable for being crossed by electricity lines and a large pylon. We parked on the roadside verge, starting our picking from there, which occasioned Onyx’s owner keeping him on his chain whilst himself working to avoid any road related harm coming to our furry friend (Acho and his owner had remained at the domaine today with a few others as on triage table duty). We made 2-3 passes here, meeting the rest of the team for the first time this week, who were working downwards, circa half way up the rows of our second pass. We finished here in time for an early lunch, it not being worth starting anything/anywhere else. Lunch was notably good as entrée of couscous with vegetables in a tomato sauce, followed by nice pieces of salmon with pasta.
For the afternoon the whole team went to the domaine’s two adjacent NSG high, top of the slope, village crus once a transport problem I’d sort of seen coming had been resolved – somehow ! From day one there had been only two hired Renault Minibuses which, for me on first sight, clearly weren’t going to be enough. Our sub-team had been exclusively using one so I’m not sure how the rest of the main team had been getting about other than walking to the Vosne plots as had been the case in 2023. Seemed a logistical shortcoming, unless deliberate, to only have the two vehicles to supplement the various domaine vehicles. The adjacent plots, separated by a narrow grassy vertical path, had puzzled me in terms of identity in 2023 when Michel (Gros) had clarified matters for me. Just north of NSG, at altitude, such that views south over NSG town, and north towards Vosne are quite something, right at the top of the slope before one gets into scrub of grass and shrubs, we worked a part of Aux Champs Perdrix and then En la Perriere Noblot. Fruit from these sites is blend with that of ‘Aux Athees’ (by the Intermarche), Les Lavieres, and ‘Au Bas de Combe’ for the domaine’s NSG Village. We worked 3 uphill passes of long rows as, with a couple of rest breaks, took us through the afternoon to just after 17.00 hrs. Re-joining with the rest of the team though had one major negative after the relative freedom, peace and camaraderie of our small sub-team as we had joyously been spared the nonsense and stupidity of the Belgian youth scumbag yobs which this afternoon had manifested itself again in their attempts to dump buckets of crap over one of their own number or some other targetted unfortunate. Fortunately, I was always far enough away but, whilst never struck, I did ‘suffer’ with others, the odd bunch of green or other grapes whistling through the air close by directed at one’s person. The nearest one such bunch came to me was a couple of feet away into the leaves of a nearby vine as their aims were well off & the throws being at some distance away. Utter nonsense as could have caused damage/injury to anyone unfortunate to be hit. Absolutely not needed. Hey ho.
Back to base, shower, laptop photo work, dinner & bed. The above was the end of our Cote de Nuits activities, Day 5 Wednesday seeing our first trip to the Hautes-Cotes and that evening the domaine’s vendange Paulee. As I know my enthusiasm for the Hautes-Cotes isn’t, it seems, widely shared I’m minded to condense all our remaining days into my next instalment – but will see when commencing that !
MdMdLV