So, the rain that came yesterday evening, turned out to be quite heavy for a time. It’s only five millimetres overnight, but that five millimetres is more than they’ve had for quite some time!
This morning, just like yesterday, it’s 17° but feels cooler due to a little breeze. Some of the villages were partially hidden by a fine mist, almost foggy. The rain provided a little humidity that everyone would have preferred to see a week or two earlier, but most of the vignerons are really happy, and they consider it’s going to ‘relax’ any unpicked grapes.
Today at the home domain, we started with the grand cru – and what beautiful grapes!
This was Corton Vigne aux Saint. Not the dryness of all the grapes that I triaged yesterday, but once again, beautifully shaped small bunches. The overnight rain managed to reawaken some wildlife in the cases of grapes – an occasional spider, one stinkbug, maybe a few ants and a few ladybugs too. So compared to only three ladybugs and one grasshopper yesterday, life has returned to the vines 🙂
The Corton was treated to about two-thirds whole bunch, and the rest was de-stemmed. We then moved on to Beaune 1er cru Les Pertuisots. The grapes not as optically beautiful as the Corton, but still very good – again about two-thirds whole bunch and the rest de-stemmed.
Lunch came part-way through processing the Pertuisots – and we drank wine 😉
Post-lunch, the rest of the Pertuisots before finishing the day with more Beaune 1er cru – this time from Tuvillains. Consistently good grapes – each of the crus we triaged today with a small extra amount of dried grapes, but all showed less of this than Monday’s grapes.
The boss is hoping for at least 20hl/ha from today’s crus. Like yesterday, nice pure flavours and nothing negative to report, only the consistently low volumes…
Perhaps a little white tomorrow(?)
Away from the home domaine – but still close in the Côte de Beaune – the Hospices de Beaune finished their harvest today, whereas Thomas Bouley is about to start! Occasional domaines are finishing in the Côte de Nuits too, but most ‘in the north’ are about mid-harvest. Did I mention the north? More and more Chablis domaines are starting to harvest – almost none have finished at this stage…
To be continued…
Today’s pics:
