6am – and there’s neither fresh coffee, nor croissants in French service stations !!

Effectively, the harvest is over as in Morey St.Denis, even Domaine Ponsot finished their aligoté a couple of days ago !!

So today I’m closing this localised 2025 reporting with some of the longest-waited grapes to be picked in Beaujolais – my more in-depth thoughts on the harvesting period will come in my September report..

‘Heroic viticulture on the hillsides‘
That’s how the locals describe their cultivation of the steep vineyards, and only partly with tongue in cheek …

Here in Rivolet – southern Beaujolais, but still Beaujolais Villages – the loamy soil is kinder to cultivate than the sandy granite that characterises hillsides of Chiroubles and others like Le Perréon, but the gradient here is still not to be underestimated !!

These were the vines of Château de l’Éclair, sitting at 400m at the bottom of the parcel and going to 500m at the top: 0.8 ha of vines trained up and down the hill, another 0.8 that is terraced across the hill. Replanted from goblet-pruned vines in 1999. Our harvesting took place in 26°C, despite our altitude – the forecast suggests 11°C for next Tuesday…

Nice grapes, no rot, just a little dried grapes. The most consistent (still small) problem was some losses to wasps. Then followed a delicious lunch; the meat was cooked in the grape pressings with extra lees. I did a quick check, but failed to locate the tofu !!

Our destination on the facing hillside…

What a view

Not bad

Still not bad !!

Before – of course !!

Eating lunch in the vines

Our sausages cooked in the grape pressings

Withe added lees…

Hmm – can’t spot the tofu !!

Done !

Courtieux – the parcel here in Rivolet

This afternoon in Vosne-Romanée

A hot year – you could say quite a dry one – but, as you can see, not dry finishing for the later pickers.

The rain was quite strong in the Côte d’Or in the early morning of today. By 09h00 it had largely stopped. With rain forecast for today but then a forecast of nearly 10 days of dry weather, things were looking up for the later pickers.

But about 4pm the sky grew dark and the nearby villages were lost in the rainclouds. I missed the worst of the downpours – but not their aftermath – ie the rivers of fast-moving, brown-clay-coloured, water.

Above is the view with Vosne 1er Les Suchots in the foreground, with high-trained vines of Leroy’s Romanée St.Vivant in the background – your intrepid reporter chose to stay in the car !! Luckily, Vosne seems to have been largely picked !!

Gevrey-Chambertin today:
It’s really towards the north of the Côte d’Or where there is still work to do, hence, my trip to Gevrey.

I didn’t see the rain, recorded above, any further north than Chambolle-Musigny, as, at this hour, I was already heading south.

More generally, it’s a minority of the parcels, but plenty of grapes were still waiting in the vines, not much in the villages plots, more in premiers such as Corbeaux and Cazetiers. There were also grapes waiting in Mazis du Bas. As for grapes not waiting, there were teams picking in Bèze, Chapelle-Chambertin and Chambertin itself.

I had a small chat with Jean-Louis Trapet (some images from Domaine Trapet below). “We will finish harvesting tomorrow with some Pommard from higher-located vines and some Marsannay. I’m very happy with the maturity, and whilst we are just starting to see a little rot, it’s all triaged, of course.”

Villages Gevrey-Chambertin

Aha – the resting place of some signs !!

Destemmed chez Trapet

Not Trapet – but Mazis du Bas

Beaune 1er Les Grèves

Just a quick tasting 😉

Hospices cuverie – all quiet

Hospices cuverie – all quiet

The weekend is offering a nice respite from the rain of last week – though more rain is forecast for Monday, ie tomorrow:

Much is still happening in the crus of Beaujolais. Apart from Monday the weather is set fair – so it should be a comfortable end to their 2025 harvesting. There has been some mildew in the north of Beaujolais, reducing the yields a little.

Likewise there has been outbreaks of mildew in the southern and northern Mâconnais, not to mention instances of hail, so the yields are certainly quite variable.

The Côte Chalonnaise has seen a little more settled conditions than further south, here I’ve seen some of the highest potential degrees for wines – sometimes approaching 14°.

The Côte de Beaune – higher ground excepted – is mainly finished.

The Hautes Côtes, due to a later flowering, missed the wet and windy weather of the Côte d’Or so there are fewer millerandé bunches and the quality and quantity of grapes looks very promising indeed.

The Côte de Nuits harvest is heading into it’s later phase – the later harvesters are not long underway – Sylvie Esmonin is harvesting her Clos St.Jacques today and Sirugue-Noellat were harvesting Grands-Echézeaux. DRC are normally in the earlier wave of harvesters though this year they seem a little later. They seem to be close to finishing though, with some Romanée St.Vivant this morning after making their last pass through La Tâche yesterday. Anecdotally, the degrees are a little lower in the Côte de Nuits than the Côte de Beaune – potentially due to harvesting after more rain…

In Chablis, the domaines are racing to finish in the face of an outbreak of botrytis. In Irancy it’s calmer. Some domaines are only just starting to harvest, whereas In Bourgogne Epineuil, much was already underway yesterday.

The Hospices 2025: the 165th wine auction

The team team were having mid-harvest when I went to Ludivine’s presentation of how the 2025 harvest was going on Thursday the 4th.

The domaine have 21 of their 60 hectares in Beaune, the domaine covering 125 different parcels vines. The have vines in 15 of the 42 (official) 1er crus of Beaune. This year, they are harvesting for the first time their new cuvée ‘François Faiveley’ in the Clos de Vougeot.

An interesting comment from the representative of Sotheby’s: “For the auction there been a higher demand to register for the 2025 sale than any of the previous chez Sotheby’s.”

We took a tour in three Beaune 1ers – but in the rain – I felt sorry for those that thought the electric ‘trotinettes’ a good idea; they may have been fun, but they left trousers and coats sprayed with wet clay of the vineyards !! Ludivine (right) wearing the obligatory safety helmet in Beaune 1er Cent Vignes!!

Summarising Ludivine’s words:
‘2025 is a vintage that had a normal spring – in the modern norms. Despite a colder winter than that of 2023-2024, it’s clearly not a later vintage than 2024.

Flowering started a little chaotically. Initially it was cooler, with some rain and wind – resulting in plenty of millerandé bunches. The cleanliness in the vines was satisfying though, particularly after 2024 – this year we made 11 treatments vs 17 in 2024, the last treatment on the 14 July.

The maturity came in steady fashion – veraison coming around the 20 July vs 8 August in 2024: So earlier, but we still had the time to properly prepare for our harvest.

Our first harvests, in the whites, was 24 August. We often harvest Volnay at the same time but this year those parcels needed longer, and we still have a number of parcels to finish – there are 5 hectares left to harvest, spread across Monthelie, Pernand-Vergelesses, Saint-Romain and the Clos de la Roche. Harvesting this year taking a few days longer than the average.

We can see some development of botrytis, but harvesting in any vintage is always a compromise. The quantity of rain in the last days has been equally variable – some of our sectors could be compared to 2020, others are more ‘classic.’ In some areas the grapes hardly seemed to drink the extra water, others we could see the reverse and a lowering of the potential alcohols but the acidity wasn’t ‘degraded.’

The whites look super; they had beautiful lees and good acidity. The maturity in the reds is more variable – 12.2-13.5° – the skins are thick this year and have an important level of polyphenols. Our decuvages will be starting in about 3 weeks so I still have time to make some comparisons with other vintages. The volume is good though – it’s a good vintage ending in 5…‘

Today, it’s a sunny start in Beaune (right) – the people around town have smiles.

Hereabouts, the size of grapes have generally been smaller this year – despite almost a hundred millimetres of rain in the last seven days, but it’s been a regular dose with warmer, drier weather in between the downpours. The rain itself has often been quite heavy, sometimes even bringing the worry of hail, which, fortunately, has never materialised. The grapes, already quite small from the heat of August, don’t seem to have massively grown despite all that rain.

The late harvesting domaines of the Côte de Beaune are now (just) underway – Pierrick and Thomas Bouley plus the Pousse d’Or – just in Volnay! In Vosne-Romanée we have a couple of domaines that are not long underway – Grivot, amongst others, headlining.

For the reds, it will be interesting to compare the (potentially) more concentrated but less phenolically ripe wines made from grapes picked before the rains to those harvested after – though it’s the different approaches to viticulture that will define when grapes are ‘ready’.

Most in the Côte de Beaune has been done, excepting the higher lying vines and some in Corton – though much of Corton was picked as producers worried about waiting with so many storms in the forecast. A lot of people are still thinking of waiting five or six days before they do anything with their higher vines – an example of such plots would be Vaumuriens in Pommard.

So mainly for a ‘before and after rain comparison’ we will be comparing Côte de Beaune with Côte de Nuits.

So how are things further north? I jumped in the car to find out:

In Chablis, most domaines have been harvesting since Saturday or Monday – so 3-5 days. The largest part of the crus (grand and 1er) have been picked – the majority of the remaining work lies with the villages.
Right: Les Blanchots

Today, though, I could see a couple of teams underway in Montée de Tonnerre, one manually going through the vines, the other with two giant picking machines. In the grand crus there was Bessin-Tremblay picking their Valmur and also the Chablisienne picking a lower-lying part of their Grenouilles – they own 80% of this cru.

But it’s become complicated in the last week !!

Mid-August, everything looked in good control, the problem started with the rain of the last 10 days. Like in the Côte d’Or, but more – 120-130mm of rain – but over 80mm came with one large wave over 36 hours – and now botrytis is starting to spread in the vines. Today was 27°C and mainly sunny with a strong wind – which should help control the problem – but it also spreads the spores of the botrytis. Unfortunately, storms are forecast for Thursday.

Blanchots – now you see it

Blanchots – now you don’t

Les Clos

Machine harvested Les Clos

The lost cluster !!

Not the best Vaudesir

Not the best Vaudesir (2)

Team in Valmur

Bessin-Tremblay Valmur

No names, but I did see some machine-picked villages ‘grapes’ on a moving table – and it looked more like the triage !!

But what of the base material? If you look at the grapes that remain in the grand crus, the grapes are small to medium-sized but the more sheltered clusters already have some botrytis to trie.

I spoke with a bunch of vignerons. Here are their thoughts:

Gilles Fevre: “It’s been okay up until today – with good sugar levels and the acidity is quite good too – the yields are modest though – under 40hl/ha. The crus have been harvested and we need another 4-5 days to finish the villages. We are having to speed up as the rot is coming !!”
Charlene & Laurent Pinson: “Yes, that was our (manual) picking team in Montée de Tonnerre. After last year, we’re really happy – and probably a bit more than 40hl/ha, so we’ll take that !! The low volumes are not just because of the two heatwaves leading to small grapes; the mildew of last year took its toll, so the amount of flowers was already modest this year.”
Olivier Bailly (Billaud-Simon): “The rain really boosted the grapes, which, until that time, had very small berries. But to the extent where it was starting to crack some of the skins, but then it was dry again, and things calmed. Botrytis has started to cause problems in some sectors, though we’ve got some wind now, which could further spread the spores of rot – but it will help to keep things dry, so we should finish without problems. The rot hasn’t really exploded yet – like in 2013 – but if we get another rainstorm, it really could !!”
Samuel Billaud: “I’m about halfway through. I’ve already finished all my crus, but I’ve still got about another three to five days for all the Chablis. The amount of rot depends on the sector. The volumes are variable – some are up at 50 hl/ha and I’m happy with that. The pHs are also quite good.”

Chablisiene Grenouilles

‘Le Moutonne’

Grenouilles

Grenouilles