Waiting for the grapes…

The day that Charles Lachaux of Vosne-Romanée finishes his harvest, we are about 60% of the way through, though Charles has quite different viticulture to most domaines. Many others in the Côte de Nuits are still not looking to start until the middle of next week – or even later! Since yesterday, much of the Côte de Beaune white harvest is underway – administratively, Mondays are always the best time to start!

So today, we started with Bourgogne Côte d’Or Blanc from Chorey (where else?), followed by Chorey Rouge, followed by Bourgogne Côte d’Or Blanc (again), followed by Chorey Rouge (again!) – that took our whole day. I may have forgotten to mention the home domaine’s new innovation for 2020 – a second press for the whites – and it’s bigger too – 35 hl versus the 24 of the old one – and it’s not a replacement – we now have 2! Despite the removal of this important bottleneck, we still had to split the picking/triage today as both presses were full. The first session with the Bourgogne Blanc saw ‘almost’ zero oïdium but quite a few impacts from hail – virtually unreported in July which we will probably also see in the white Pernands over the coming days. The weather was dry and warm after this hail, hence, no rot and easy to triage. The red, as yesterday, the easiest Chorey I’ve triaged at this domaine. This parcel was near to a wood which retained a lot of damp near the vines and so plenty of rot too – the trees nearest the vines were cut down last year – it’s made a massive difference.

But I know that you are all on the edge of your seats, straining to know a little of the analytics of these baby 2020 wines – so here you go:

2020 Beaune 1er Blanc, pH 3.2 with about 1.9 g/l of malic acid and a potential alcohol of 13.15
2020 Beaune 1er Rouge, pH 3.3 with about 1.9 g/l of malic acid and a potential alcohol of 13.45
2020 Savigny Rouge, pH 3.2 with about 1.9 g/l of malic acid and a potential alcohol of 13.40

So not much in the way of tax savings if they are exported to the US!

Lunch saw the restoration of our usual traiteur – he had been on holiday. It wasn’t really to mark the occasion, but it turned out that we had some nice wines:

1990 Pierre Marey et Fils, Corton-Charlemagne
A new ‘old’ domaine for me that no longer exists. I believe that Brigitte Berthelemot may be exploiting most of these Charlemagne vines now. A poor cork that really had us laughing – It had clearly snapped with only a small lean of the corkscrew but going in for the second piece I seemingly did the trick with no need for decanting. But when I attempted to pour the wine, nothing happened – there was a third piece still in the neck – oh how I laughed – grr!
Deeply golden in colour. The nose has impact and sweetness – the faintest suggestion of oxidation yet it remained a lovely invitation – with time in the glass taking on a more smoky note and less of that suggestion of oxidation. In the mouth it was powerful, forward, sweet wine with the merest trace of oxidation on the first sip – frankly, I never thought about it thereafter. Clearly for drinking now – but also really for enjoying now – very attractively balanced despite its obvious concentration.
Rebuy – Maybe

2013 Taupenot-Merme, Morey St.Denis 1er La Roitte
DIAM-sealed – no problems of course.
Medium-plus colour. This nose is high-toned, pure and has an engaging, practically floral, dimension that offsets a little graphite-style minerality. In the mouth I kind of like the edginess here – fine acidity, a little direct and structural but pure too. Far from the ripeness of recent vintages – but who needs that? Though for such an excellent 1er cru I might have expected a little more power – but that’s the vintage. Excellent and very much enjoyed.
Rebuy – Yes

2000 Thomas-Moillard, Romanée St.Vivant
I had to go very carefully, but the cork came out in one piece. Here’s a wine (domaine!) that needs 20 years as a minimum – looks like we might be lucky then!
Deeply coloured – they used to like to extract! The nose is wide and brings the impression of silk – complex too but with a little brett I thought – nobody else seemed to care – that’s French wineries for you! In the mouth though, this really showed the nobility of the terroir if not the winemaking – weight of flavour but immaculately textured and delivering waves of flavour – very long finishing too. The nose left me unfulfilled but everyone else loved this wine – while I returned to the Riotte, they finished this bottle!
Rebuy – Maybe

Triage

Nearly empty triage bin…

Triage under the vibrating table

Triage at the end of the traige table

Lunch – with all the parts of the cork!

2020 Savigny 1er Hautes Jarrons

I’m a little late posting today – there was some football. Given the result, I suppose that I’d better not speak German in winery tomorrow…

On the positive side of things, according to the team of pickers, the vineyards were much less sticky today!

Today saw lots of fruit from Savigny – Hautes Jarrons and Aux Jarrons – respectively white and red. Then there was red Chorey, a big parcel that we will finish tomorrow. With a few additional questions, I’ve put two and two together and come up with the original source of the domaine’s new vines in Savigny: the ‘négoce‘ from who they acquired the vines was Martenot/Sauvestre – so I asked – are those the old vines from Domaine Maurice Ecard? It seems that they are. This is only a small portion of of the old Ecard estate which they (Sauvestre’s company Béjot) acquired in 2006. Ecard, according to Anthony Hanson’s book, had 7 hectares of 1ers in Savigny – 3 of Serpentières, 2 of Jarrons (Hautes and Aux) and another 2 hectares of Narbantons. Less than 2 of those hectares have come to the home domaine here in Beaune, but they had them for the whole viticultural season in 2020. As one was to hand, I brought a 2005 Serpentières to lunch as a homage 🙂

The Hautes-Jarrons white was a pain to triage – only one of our several bins (each with about 300kg of fruit) had noticeable oïdium – but that was easy to remove as you just throw away the whole bunch! But the rest had a lot of dried/grilled/roast grapes – see the header image – and these took plenty of time to remove. By way of contrast, the Aux Jarrons red, was a pleasure to work with – nicely shaped clusters, modestly sized grapes and the triage table was running at full speed as there was so little to remove – excellent! The Chorey-rouge was much less consistent in ripeness, but again, and certainly compared to previous vintages, was quite an easy triage – some unripe and some roast to remove. 2020 is a vintage, so far, where after multiple tonnes of fruit over 3 days, I have yet to see one bunch of grapes with rot!

Importantly, the home team is getting properly into the stride of its organisation of events – coffee at 10h15 and lunch before 13h30 🙂

One of our team – ex Bernard Loiseau – brought an interesting white Rhône for lunch – just a bit too heavily perfumed/aromatic for me but otherwise delicious. Additionally, we had:

2013 Jomaine, Puligny-Montrachet 1er Les Perrières
A good cork, easily removed.
It must be my age, but I can hardly remember what happened in Puligny in 2013 – other than that they avoided the Côte de Beaune hail. This has a nicely aromatic and fresh nose – it’s a good invitation. Quite concentrated – rich is often a style for the wines from this producer – but the balance here is good. A tasty wine, though even at the modest prices that this domaine charges I’d still only say very good, rather than great value.
Rebuy – Maybe

2005 JC Boisset, Savigny-lès-Beaune 1er, Serpentières
JCB had this and Hautes-Jarrons in 2005. It’s not a stretch to think that maybe they got the grapes from Ecard, who sold the domaine in the following year. As you can see, the cork from this wine was just as awful as the one in their Hautes Jarrons – splitting in half then crumbling on extraction!
Oh – but what a great nose – clean young fruit – lots of freshness and a certain graphite-style to the aromatic minerality. Sweeping, sweetly fresh flavours over the palate. Clearly a winner – despite such youth – and a crowd-pleaser too. Much more approachable today – less autere – that the Jarrons I linked above. Excellent!
Rebuy – Yes (despite the crappy corks!)

2020 Savigny 1er Aux Jarrons

Lunch – a part

Time to clean…

At 01h20 this morning came the thunder – followed by around 12 mm of rain – in Beaune anyway.

Seemingly there was plenty in Savigny too, at least if judging by the muddy boots of our pickers today… And talking of Savigny, there were the grapes of new vines in our cuverie today; the domaine has been (both) shopping and planting over the last year – they have 10.7 hectares now with plenty of new vines in Savigny. Tomorrow comes Savigny Les Jarrons, of which the home domaine now has an impressive 1.2 hectares. Today we finished with the (also) new Savigny Narbantons – a much smaller parcel but lovely grapes – our triage effectively only being for leaves and the odd second-set bunch that shouldn’t have been collected. These were attractive bunches of small grapes – this will be an interesting wine to follow. The large parcel of Jarrons was previously exploited by ‘a négoce,’ I neglected to ask the question about the Narbantons.

But I’m getting ahead of myself: We actually started the day with good quality grapes from the last of our Savigny villages parcel before changing to a modestly sized parcel of Bourgogne Côte d’Or – the second vintage for vines planted only in 2016. These vines are sited in the commune of Chorey-lès-Beaune. For such young vines, excellent grapes again. Then came our Chorey blanc – a little more oïdium than the whites I triaged yesterday, though saying one bunch in a hundred was affected would be a major overstatement. On the positive side, hardly any of the dried/roasted grapes to triage that were seen yesterday.

While I’m remembering all my ‘mask-moaning‘ points from yesterday, here’s one I forgot: If there’s something smelly on the triage table, you’ll hardly notice it until all the grapes have passed you by. A good thing for stink-bugs – I accept! – but less good if you have something bacterial on your table. That said, I haven’t smelled anything like that latter point since at least 2016…

At least ‘pre-overnight-rain,’ the effects of the dry summer and the roasting of some grapes are apparent; yesterdays Beaune-Reversées delivered 19 hl/ha – but that’s up from the 16 of last year! The villages Savigny delivered only 30 hl/ha – so about 2/3rds of what the domaine would have been anticipating. It will be interesting to compare these numbers with other vines to be harvested in the following days.

Lunch today came at much more comfortable 13h30. The wines were good too. We started with a 2017 Savigny-Vergelesses Blanc from the domaine, followed by two delicious contributions – the younger of which was mine:

2000 Vougeraie, Vougeot 1er Les Cras
What a great and indeed long (54mm) cork. The wine stain had hardly managed to penetrate more than one of those 54 millimetres! Based on this showing, I’m sad to say that this is the last or perhaps penultimate from my 6-pack.
Medium, semi-mature, colour, but no overt browning. An airy nose, not full-power but beautifully delicate and complex – full of spice and flower suggestions – a beautiful invitation. Open, indeed mouth-filling wine. Not a wine of great impact, but mouth-wateringly complex and balanced flavour – actually a good acidity. No drops of this were left…
Rebuy – Yes

1985 Michel Gaunoux, Pommard 1er Grands Epenots
This cork was a little shorter – less robust too. Despite the last third of the cork breaking-off and seeming to sink deeper into the neck, I somehow managed to rescue it without the need for decanting – hooray!
Well, what another super nose! Airy, floral, almost a complexity of acid cherry – a touch less width but more warm depth to the fruit with just a shade of leather in these deep notes. In the mouth another wine in tip-top condition; A little more structural than the ‘Cras’ – like a recent Epentots at home, I’m sure I might have been guessing Clos de Vougeot, rather than Pommard. With 8 of us sitting down for lunch, this was also consumed very quickly. Really a top wine!
Rebuy – Yes

Lunch

Lunch (parts)

flying grapes

Bourgogne Côte d’Or

Bourgogne no more…

Bye-bye juice…

2020 Beaune 1er Les Reversées

Masks.

Triage can such an unfulfilling work wearing a mask. How do you taste the grapes(?) How do you blow a spider off your sticky fingers(?) How do you properly understand the French of your triage neighbour through their mask without seeing their lips and facial expressions(?) – okay, there is still their hands and shoulders! Finally, what is the point of the mask when we all sit together – no distancing – at the round table for lunch(?) – and, yes, you guessed it – without masks! Of course, we bring out the masks, once more, directly after finishing lunch. I assume that this is to fulfil the French covid regulations but probably little else.

That’s life – and harvesting – 2020-style!

The home team really worked today – the carrot that was dangled before us, yesterday evening, of an early start and so an early finish came to nought; 07h30 start, coffee eventually at 11h15! Lunch at 15h45. That’s not very French!!! And then there was still the small matter of the remaining grapes to triage after our late lunch. I ended the day with tired feet and knees – I’m sure I haven’t stood in one place for 9 hours for, well, 1 year…

But what about the grapes? I hear you say!

2020 has some very good grapes, that’s for sure, but triage is going to be important in most cases; principally for removing the sun-burned, dried, raisined fruit – in both the pinot and chardonnay – but principally the latter from what I’ve seen on the triage-table so far. There was much talk of oïdium in the summer but I saw none in our reds, and only 4 or 5 affected bunches in our whites – so significantly less than in 2019. Today I triaged grapes from Beaune – red and white premier crus – plus red Savigny villages. Our 2019 Beaune Reversées lives in my memory as the greatest looking parcel of grapes that I ever worked on – since 2004 – the same from 2020 had me reminiscing because of their beautiful shapes and tiny berries, but they weren’t quite as good as in 2019!

The average berry-size is medium to small this year – parcel/clone-dependent – and there is virtually no fauna to be found in the grapes – perhaps they only take shelter in colder weather. 9 hours of grape-work produced around 1 earwig, 3 ladybugs, and half a dozen spiders – nothing! The grapes are clearly sugar-laden and my fingers have taken on some of the tannin colour already. Perhaps less so than in 2019 and 2018 but we clearly have very ripe grapes and a sticky triage table. Ignoring some incorrectly cut second-set bunches, there is virtually no unripe to throw away in the parcels harvested so far.

This reminds me of the positive aspect of harvesting in August – no, not the warmer weather – rather that it’s a bit too early to be greeted by lots and lots of wasps. I’ve never been stung during an August harvest!

Tomorrow it’s easy in the cuverie – we start at 08h15. I think it will be my turn to supply the croissants – assuming we get coffee at a decent time!

Oh! I should mention my contribution to lunch given that it showed so well!
1984 Boyer-Martenot, Meursault 1er Charmes Cuvée André-Paul
Really quite a good cork – I had to be gentle and keep going a little deeper with the corkscrew, but this came out in one piece – just! Bought in a mixed auction lot in Switzerland, maybe 15 years ago. Such a miserable vintage for reds – probably the worst in the last 40 years – but if this is representative, it seems not for whites:
Plenty of colour but not browning. The nose has lots of depth and complexity – sweetness even – but none of that complexity is sherried. In the mouth – hmm – presence, concentration indeed the richness of the cru but with good balancing acidity and plenty of sweetness in this mature but delicious flavour. Really a wine where I was looking to top up my glass. I don’t know how much of the sweetness came from the supermarket in this vintage, but this was balanced and completely delicious. The whole table approved!

Beaune-Belissand

Beaune-Reversées

Reversées

Time for the clean-up

Lunch – a part…

Echézeaux – 20 Aug 2020

Yesterday saw the early harvesters – or more their early parcels – at work across Burgundy; Chablis, Mâconnais and Beaujolais, not just the producers in the Côte de Beaune.

The Côte de Nuits still seems to have much time available; today practically the only team I saw in the vines, so far north of Beaune, was the team of Joseph Drouhin in their Griotte-Chambertin – but they do have plenty of young vines here. Heading south it was only as you approached the hill of Corton where you could see harvesting teams in action – this continued in the flat-lands of Aloxe and a little in Chorey too.

The harvest has been 95% reds so far, but today saw some of the best-known domaines of the Côte de Beaune in the vines – Lafon, for example, harvesting his old vines in Meursault-Perrières.

Asking a few Côte de Nuits producers about how their harvest-timing was looking:
David Rossignol at Rossignol-Trapet: “On Monday we tested the grapes in our various parcels. Generally, we had maturities of 11.8-12° so are planning to start our harvest in 8 days.”
Frederic Mugnier: “I’m not planning to start for another week – but that will still be a new record for early harvesting here. There have been some days of high temperatures this year but unlike 2003, a vintage that was marked by its heat, I see 2020 as a vintage that has been marked by its dryness.”
Laurent Ponsot: “I am planning to start on the 10th of September – I still have time to take some holidays!”

Now that Pierre Damoy is considering an earlier start – 08 September – it looks like we have our ‘bookends’ in terms of first and last starters! It’s clear that the maturity is far from homogenous north of Beaune, as can be seen from incomplete veraison in my pics below from Grands-Echézeaux.

For your interest, Domaine de la Vougeraie have started, today, with their harvesting reports, here.

My home domaine in Beaune began its harvest today with their villages and premier crus in Savigny – reds. They had originally planned to start on the 24th, so the switch to today caught me out with appointments in the Côte de Nuits (hence the quotes, above) but tomorrow I will be ready to get my hands dirty. They also brought in Corton Renardes at 13.4°. So far, the domaine team love the quality but not the quantity – the dry weather has delivered around 30 hl/ha in the vines harvested so far. The domaine was finished recieving grapes already at 2 pm as they decided that it was too warm to harvest in the afternoon. We will do the same tomorrow; pickers in the vines at first light – 06h30 – and all done by lunch, though clearly a 2 pm lunch – not 12! More details on that tomorrow.

Yellow leaves in Echézeax

Yellow leaves in Echézeax

Grands-Echézeaux

Drouhin, harvesting today

Clos de Reas – with open doors!

Looking at the list of the old ‘ban des vendanges‘ – and it goes ‘very old’ – the list goes back to 1370! The (prior) earliest harvest that I can find is the vintage 1556; the allowed starting date that year was the 16^th August. Vintage 2003 was a much lazier 19^th August! In the data there are 2 dates for the ban – one for Beaune, one for Dijon. I’ve taken the one for Beaune:

Here’s a quick look at the list of ‘August vintages’ as it currently stands:

Taken from records* starting from the year 1370:
(Year – date)
2020 – 14.8
1556 – 16.8
2003 – 19.8
2018 – 20.8
1559 – 24.8
2017 – 25.8
2015 – 26.8
1603 – 27.8
2011 – 27.8
1434 – 28.8
1684 – 28.8
1420 – 29.8
1473 – 29.8
1719 – 29.8
2007 – 29.8
1540 – 30.8
1673 – 30.8
1686 – 30.8
1706 – 31.8
*2007 was the last vintage where a ban des vendanges was called, and it was a largely symbolic 13 August – long before anyone picked, hence, I have not used that date for my list. Note these are the dates that grapes were picked in the Côte de Beaune, and to make still wines…

Storm-clouds in Beaune yesterday evening.

All was very quiet in the vines on Sunday – there was 2-3mm of rain in the morning followed by the return of the sun in the afternoon. The evening forecast suggested storms and it was dry but indeed rather dark when we quit Beaune, direction Bern, at 6pm (above).

Today has seen the first pickers that I’m aware of* (with images) – right. Picking in the Côte de Beaune, Antoine Olivier is attacking his pinot noir in Savigny-lès-Beaune’s 1er Les Peuillets this morning.
*I later saw that Jean-Michel Chartron had picked his (red!) Puligny 1er Clos des Caillerets on the 14^th August. The team of Pierre Glantenay, in Volnay, were, like Antoine Olivier, picking on the 17^th.

It’s a vintage where, as Olivier Fichet showed last week, where the pinot seems to be ready before the chardonnay – evidenced by a lack of Ente, Lafon, Lamy, Dancer and Roulot in the vines, at least, so far! I saw David Croix jetting through Beaune on his (non-electric) cycle on Saturday and he confirmed that he would be starting his picking tomorrow. One day later it will be the Hospices de Beaune making their first secateur-action. Benjamin Leroux, on Sunday, was giving less away but said ‘yes, very soon, probably just a few more days.‘

And my home domaine? The debut of our harvest was planned for next Monday, the 24th, but it’s been brought forward to this Thursday – we attack!!

Here.

Olivier Fichet (the Mâconnais one) started harvesting yesterday – the 12^th August is, of-course, a modern-day record – Olivier started his 2003 harvest on the 20^th August. It’s one of their parcels of pinot too – machine harvested in this case…

Veraison 04 Aug Fixin Clos des Perrières

Of-course, it’s normal.

There was a bit of emotion with the tempest of hail that hit Nuits on Saturday, so it’s always better to wait 3 or 4 days before considering the full effect. And the effect seems to have been limited. The storm itself – thankfully – seems to have been centred on the town of Nuits itself. Some vines have been hit, but it’s predominantly a few puncture wounds to leaves and the occasional berry that has some impact damage on the southern side of Nuits. It was reported that the damage was all the way to Premeaux, but that wasn’t the case, the hail stopped quite close to the housing of Nuits – I’ve no info on damage to the north of Nuits but most villages actually remained dry.

And July? The average temperatures have been within a degree of a ‘normal’ July but there has been an almost record low of rain and many more hours of sunshine than the average. The sun has certainly managed to shrivel some of the directly exposed grapes, but unlike those few hailed berries around Nuitswhich have the time to dry completely, the sunburned grapes rarely fall to the ground so need more work to triage. The final treatments have already been made, so whilst growers might like a little more rain, they will happily so ‘no’ if it entails a storm. The projected harvest date remains one of the earliest on record and will be a function of both individual viticulture and attitude!

In Beaujolais, the harvest date is projected to be a little later than in 2003, but still the second earliest since data recording was properly established in 1992. Much further to the north – the sauvignons of Saint-Bris need another couple of weeks to be anywhere close to showing their maturity, but in general, like the rest of Burgundy, all is clean in the vineyards and the yields look modestly generous.

Some vines from today in Nuits 1er Les Procés:

Hail damage

Hail damage

Hail damage

No hail damage to grapes, only the leaves