99.9% of the harvesting is now over, only the late finishers of the Côte de Nuits (and maybe Hautes Côtes!) such as Damoy, Ponsot and Grivot seem to be unfinished. Even Marko de Morey finished his harvesting yesterday – surviving a weekend bout of a sore throat and heavy head-cold – so didn’t join us for breakfast on Sunday! The weather wasn’t particularly great at the weekend, but is set fair and quite cool this week – perfect for those who are finishing off.

To confirm previous discussions, wines – red and white – seem to have pHs of about 3.2-3.3 with normal, roughly equal, quantities of tartaric and malic acids this year. This is fine for the reds, if rather more modest (pH) for whites.

I have this in my mailbox from the people at Interbeaujolais – bigging-up their 2017 harvest:

The harvest ends in the Beaujolais, the focus moving from the vineyards to the cellars.
“The highlight of the harvest took place the first fortnight of September an ideal time for the winemaker. 2017 will remain a year strongly influenced by the hazards of the weather. A little spring frost, violent hailstorms in early summer, and fairly widespread drought conditions.

In the areas most affected by water stress a ‘saving’ rain just before the harvest allowed the grapes to recover the freshness that was missing for optimal maturity, allowing the Gamay can express its fruity and aromatic potential. There were no disease pressures in 2017, only a lack of water, the state of health was perfect and the grapes of very high quality – they were concentrated, with a nice acid balance – the thick and firm skins, shot berries and low juice proportions being the guarantors of a good concentration.

The first tastings reveal wines perfectly balanced between acidity, fruit and tannins. The roots had to dig deeper into the soil to feed, and it seems that the remarkable terroirs still express better than usual. While it is still early to qualify precisely, the 2017 vintage looks in any case of great quality. The volumes, as unfortunately in many other French vineyards, will be low.”
Source: Inter Beaujolais Press Office

Nuits St.Georges:

Nuits St.Georges – almost a double rainbow 5 minutes later…

Today was more like April – despite a dry forecast – the showers came blustery and sometimes heavy. There was even hail at lunchtime at Gevrey rail-station – but the localised nature of these squalls seems to have completely missed the Route des Grands Crus. A quick coffee in Gevrey (with Huguette!) and then we took the vineyard road as far as Vosne-Romanée before the route nationale back to Beaune.

Yesterday there was almost no-one in the vines – there weren’t many today, but first we met a small team from Henri Rebourseau who were picking Mazis-Chambertin. A little further down the road, on the other side were a team from Pierre Damoy who were bringing in some Chapelle-Chambertin. Further down the hillside in Charmes-Chambertin was another team – but I decided not to slide down the wet grass bank to ask who!
 

Post harvest washing in Beaune (AF Gros)

Huguette in Gevrey-Chambertin

Team Rebourseau in Mazis-Chambertin

Rebourseau’s Mazis-Chambertin

Team Damoy in Chapelle-Chambertin

Damoy’s Chapelle-Chambertin

Onwards towards Vosne-Romanée and up a side ‘street’ a team was getting involved in some Echézeaux picking – this was Domaine Grivot – and they have at least another 5 days of harvesting to go. Then onwards through the rainbow back to Beaune!
 

Domaine Remy’s Latricières-Chambertin…

Aligoté triage chez Taupenot-Merme…

Echézeaux

Team Grivot in Echézeaux

Team Grivot in Echézeaux

Team Grivot in Echézeaux

And for a little fun – do you want to see how much work Thibault Liger-Belair’s team put into their Richebourg? Hand-destemming every grape…

Our man in Morey is fully on-station this year, unfortunately his James Bond supply of electronics has let him down. But his camera is working, if unfortunately sans commentary this year.

Photos from 05+06 September:

Nuits’ Clos de l’Arlot , this afternoon…

Although I ‘did’ Nuits and Chambolle yesterday, I’m a sucker for a nice view – so today, the team of l’Arlot were at it again, plus more again in the swathe of vines (Premeaux) south of Nuits close to Les St.Georges. As I pulled off the D974, direction Chambolle, I was planning to take the Route des Grands Crus into Morey – but had to double-back as a delivery truck was blocking the road. The detour through the vines brought me to a team from Boisset, picking some Chambolle villages.
 

Nuits 1er Clos l’Arlot

Chambolle Condemennes

Chambolle

Onward to Morey, and it was deathly calm, even the winery of Domaine Ponsot seemed becalmed. Then the Route des Grands Crus once more towards Gevrey-Chambertin. Again silent – only one team could be seen picking – just below Griotte-Chambertin – so I assume in villages Aux Etelois. This important stretch of vines between Morey and Gevrey seemed, maybe, half-picked. I stopped just before the town of Gevery, the other side of the road to Mazis-Chambertin to look at the vines. Here is En Pallud and La Perrière. Like in Grands Echézeaux, yesterday, some vines looked to be be supporting as much as a dozen bunches of grapes – just a little smaller berries and with less rot here though. I walked for a while through the centre of Gevrey-Chambertin but all seemed becalmed – virtually no-one to quiz.

The Côte St.Jacques was empty apart from just one team from Domaine Philippe Seguin who were bringing in grapes from a seemingly quite high parcel of Lavaux St.Jacques. A team from Faiveley were on a smoke-break, just the other side of the main road.
 

Gevrey En Pallud

Towards the Combe de Lavaux

Clos St.Jacques

Lavaux St.Jacques

Lavaux St.Jacques

Faiveley, in waiting, the other side of the road from Lavaux…

Back in the car I took the vineyard road towards Brochon, Fixin and Marsannay beyond. Brochon was quiet, though one team were at work high on the hillside of Gevrey Les Evocelles – maybe from Vougeraie. Fixin was very quiet until exiting the village where a small team were hard at work in Fixin Le Village. Marsannay was also quiet – here it looked like around two-thirds of the grapes have been harvested – The Château de Marsannay were busy triaging but I saw no teams in the vines on this (Couchey) side of the village – but in the direction of Grasses Têtes, Clos de Jeu and Charme aux Prêtres many teams were at work – the number of people in the vines slowly petering out from Longeroies to Clos du Roy – and here I turned round and headed back to Beaune…

Chambolle today…

The morning was pretty Autumnal and cold, so it was a surprise when it became a little muggy and 24°C in the afternoon – rain was forecast but never really materialised.

I started my afternoon tour on the northern border of Chambolle-Musigny with Morey – where Marko de Morey was picking some Aligoté (his computer refused to play this year, but I’ll still be posting some of his harvest images). Then I took a walk through the village of Chambolle to see what everyone was up to – here, together with Marsannay was the was of the frost last year – it seems that things have recovered nicely this year.

The team at Domaine Hervé Sigaut were triaging some villages Chambolle ‘Babillières’ – and beautiful it looked. Over the road at Hudelot-Baillet they said that they’d already finished all of the important 1er and grand crus – they were triaging the last of their Passetoutgrains when I passed, the main thing still waiting for them is their Hautes Côtes.

Michel Digioia was bringing in a nice looking load of grapes – when I asked which cru it was, he smiled and said – ‘It’s actually Nuits St.Georges!’

De Vogüé were cleaning when I visited – their harvesting was 02-08 September – “We had the maturity” said Jean-Luc Pepin. Francois Millet was as inscrutable as ever – “Let’s see” was his response to my (all) my questions! But the domaine confirmed that yields had recovered since the terrible frost of 2016 – they have so little that Jean-Luc said “I don’t know how we can commercialize 2016 – but this year we had nothing more than 40 hl/ha and all the frosted vines recovered well” he said.

Looking down on the Clos des Perrières

Then onwards I drove through the vines of Chambolle – lots of parked cars but not many people – towards the Clos de Vougeot. Here in their Clos des Perrières, Bertagna were harvesting – Pascal Marchand had picked his neighbouring parcel of Musigny the same morning. Onward towards Vosne, some vines remain unpicked and the amount and size of the the grapes were certainly impressive – but how does one make great wine with 12-16 bunches of grapes – per vine! There was a little rot starting to appear too – with the forecast change in the weather, I think these need to be cut pretty quickly…

Vosne-Romanée looked like it was hosting a football-match or something – just so many cars. Here there were also some massive yields in the villages vines – I’ve heard of 80+ hl/ha – t will be interesting to see how much Bourgogne Rouge will be produced this year! One grower told me that they mad a hard ‘green harvest’ when they got back from their August holiday (the grapes were not so green!) just so that they would hit the allowed yields.

Nuits had a few pickers, and particularly southern Nuits – I saw Thibault Liger-Belair exiting Les St.Georges with a nice truck-full of grapes. The team of Arlot were also busy in the Clos des Forets. Further south, heading home, I noted a couple of groups in picking Ladoix and another that looked busy in what could have been the very top of Clos du Roi – next to Le Corton. A few more in the Chorey Les Beaumonts – this is on the Aloxe side of the road – but generally this far south, the vineyards are now quiet, spent…
 

Marko de Morey’s aligoté

Faiveley in Chambolle Les Herbues

Faiveley in Chambolle Les Herbues

Chambolle

Chambolle

Chambolle

Vougeot Clos des Perrières

Grands Echézeaux – too much of this

Grands Echézeaux – too much of this

Grands Echézeaux – not enough of this