I waited a little to post info on hail in the Côte de Nuits – emotion can cloud first judgement and some people who initially estimated parcels with 40% damage now think much less…

The biggest impact remains the crus of Beaujolais – and the central corridor of that hailstorm will yield zero grapes. The hillside of Viré was also hit, but seemingly the rest of the Mâconnais was fine. In the Côte d’Or, it was the Côte de Nuits that caught the hail on Monday afternoon – coinciding with the first veraison (grapes changing colour.) Jeremy Seysses posted that the upper part of Clos St.Denis, Clos de la Roche and Monts Luisants in Morey St.Denis had been hit by hail – he currently estimates that higher on the slopes was more affected, where maybe 25% is damaged. It seems that the damage in Morey was mainly the northern side of the village, as Jacques Devauges of Clos du Tart reports “Yes, we had some hail on Monday the 10^th, but not much. The grapes are still nice.”

You can see the storm below in a video by Domaine Philippe Rossignol in Gevrey – this was taken on the hillside between Gevrey and Brochon. He notes that vines have been lightly damaged between Marsannay-la-Côte and Couchey. It’s amazing that the damage was light when you see this.

“We had about 3 hectares hit in the northern part of Gevrey; Les Jeunes Rois and Gevrey 1er cru Les Champeaux: Also in Morey Village; Morey 1er cru Aux Charmes was hit about 25%. We hope that there’s no more hail as we need to bring in a good harvest.”
Chantal Michel of Domaine Tortochot in Gevrey

Cyril Audoin notes that in Marsannay, the Clos de Jeu, Champ Salomon and Les Favières have been ‘touched.’ He also says that there were some impacts in Les Longeroies but none in the Clos du Roy. And for another view:

“We did have a little damage in the vineyards, but it’s inconsistent. We still plan to do a green harvest, on one hand to limit the harvest, one the other hand (now!) to remove the damaged grapes affected by hail – so to avoid the potential of rot.”
Isabelle Colotte of Domaine Colotte in Marsannay

The Côte de Beaune avoided the hail.

And lest we forget the epicentre in Beaujolais, the following is courtesy the Château du Moulin-à-Vent:

A violent episode of hail crossed the northern Beaujolais vineyards just before 5pm yesterday.

From Beaujeu to Moulin-à-Vent, the corridor is almost identical to that of 2016. The area concerned is large but to varying degrees according to the zones: the north of Lantignié, Régnié (to a lesser extent), Morgon (Charmes and Corcelette mainly), Chiroubles (Grille Midi especially). Fleurie (Le Bourg, Les Quatre Vents, Champagne …) seem to be the most impacted appellations. Chénas and Moulin-à-vent are also affected.

The hailstones were not large (certainly the result of using the diffusers), but the storm was associated with mini wind tornadoes that caused a real “sanding” of some vines.

In the next few days should make it possible to make a more precise assessment of the area of vines concerned and the degree of impact on the future harvest.
From Interbeaujolais this lunchtime

What devastation looks like #fuckhailhttps://t.co/MQY2TwtZnBpic.twitter.com/oBUQ2gXjfD

— Andrew Nielsen (@legrappin) July 11, 2017

As the Tour de France reaches Nuits St.Georges today, this week’s weather has recovered from the cooler wet days at the end of last week – the latter part of the week has simmered at 35°C. But there are big regional differences – last weekend Beaune received about 95 mm of rain – much needed rain – but depending on where you were in Beaujolais you may have seen between 1 and 10 mm. There are storms forecast for the weekend too

The vines are surging forward – it’s currently highly likely that the Côte d’Or will be harvesting closer to the beginning of September – more like 90 days from flowering, whereas in Beaujolais they are already starting to pencil-in dates from the 25^th August! Even Chablis where they had over 10 days of frost at the end of April is forecasting an early harvest – though the frosted vines are of-course a little behind. Yields are currently looking ‘good’ – Chablis excepted – and given the lack of wine in cellars, that would be a logistical boon, but clearly might have repercussions for the pricing of 2016s. Let’s see, according to the BIVB:

In the north of the Bourgogne winegrowing region, in the Chablis and Grand Auxerrois, growth is comparable with the 2011 and 2003 vintages. For the Côte de Beaune, Côte de Nuits and the Hautes-Côtes, it is more like 2007 and 2009, when the harvest began at the end of August or in early September. The Côte Chalonnaise should also begin harvesting around that time. As for the Mâconnais, 2017 is a week ahead of the average for the last 10 years, and 18 days ahead compared to 2016.

The grape clusters are closing up and I’ve even seen the first pictures of some colour-change – veraison. The vineyards are currently very clean – no mildew, and so-far very little sign of oïdium. Oïdium from infection to blooming needs 40 days – so so the vignerons think that if they’ve seen nothing in the next 10 days, then they will have avoided that too. In the vines maybe there are a few last treatments of sulfur and copper – but apart from a tight ‘haircut’ to tidy the vines, the only work is preparing for the harvest – oh and the vigneron(ne)s holidays!

This week I’ve been enjoying the beautiful blue skies of the Côtes – and finding my iPhone a decent-enough replacement for my camera! Yesterday was a big tasting in Beaujolais – lots and lots of St.Amour – next week I’ll be visiting the selected producers.

Only one mid-week wine – a half of 1996 Grivot Nuits Lavières. The first sip was a little sharp, but à table with the home-made burgers it was very nicely balanced. Definitely a durable wine and of interest and fine texture too, but any pretense of ‘deliciousness’ departed the scene at least 15 years ago!
 

 Les Hervelets

By the skin of its teeth, the Côte d’Or has largely escaped the frost travails of much of France (& Switzerland).

If relatively few had set light to their straw last Friday morning, it was easy to spot the difference as soon as you left the house last Saturday morning – the air in Beaune smelled of grass-fires. Many, many bails of hay and stray were set alight at 5am – to burn next to the vineyards, hoping to ward off temperatures of at least -2°C. I noted varying degrees of local commitment – there were plenty of burning bails on the route des grands crus in Gevrey, but nothing was to be seen in Morey or Chambolle – that said, Cyprien Arlaud used candles in his Clos St.Denis vines – Chablis-style.

In Vosne there was a good team effort with burning straw dotted around the commune and a good group of vignerons working together – Charles Lachaux doing the ‘belts and braces’ approach by having both bails of burning straw around his Romanée St.Vivant and candles between the rows too.

Beaune saw conspicuously little organised attempts to ward off the frost, but over 50 vingeron(ne)s gathered at 04h45 in Volnay to make some fires, it was the same further south too – not to mention some domaines hiring helicopters in the white grand crus of Puligny/Chassagne. Not everybody was unscathed – poor Savigny lost some production (again!) as did St.Aubin, St.Romain and a number of ‘Haute’ locations, though it wasn’t just the high spots, some small amounts of bourgogne at the bottom of Volnay was lost.

Afterwards the weather became cold and wet, but largely avoiding the negative temperatures. Yesterday, however, there were reports of isolated hail storms across the Côte d’Or – as far apart as Chassagne and Premeaux – though maybe in this case ‘storm’ is a little overstated as only a little damage has been reported. The main impact of the weather seem to have been to retard the growth of the vines – 2 weeks ago we were almost 2 weeks ahead of an average schedule – similar to 2007 and 2011 – but the cold has stripped that back by over a week – we are much closer to the average now – but the last days’ rain will have been welcomed by all those who didn’t have to go out in it – the start of 2017 has been very dry…

As for Beaujolais, the most affected area is in the south of the region – the Azergues valley – which was affected relatively early (21 April) by the frost. As it was quite early, it is mainly the chardonnay which was affected – so maybe a little less cremant will be made this year, but so-far, the gamay has survived intact.

Pics from Saturday 29th:
 

Villages Fixin

Fixin Au Herbues

Over Fixin Clos Napoleon to Fixin Clos de la Perrière

Over Fixin Clos Napoleon

Fixin Les Hervelets

Baby Fixin…

A pyre between RSV and Romanée-Conti

A Romanée St.Vivant pyre…

Fiery image from Caroline Parent-Gros

Whilst very few of the hay-bails in the Côte de Beaune were lit on Friday morning – temperatures only hovered around zero – the Côte de Nuits saw more hot-hay-bail action. One example was the Clos St.Jacques in Gevrey-Chambertin which was ringed by the smoke making pyres.

The skies have been clear during the night, and 45 vignerons re-convened in Volnay at 04h45 this morning, and many pyres have been lit. The weather during the days is beautiful, but still with chilly ‘bize‘ – the cold north wind – the vigneron(ne)s, however, would prefer that the wind continued in the night, but it was absent.

I’ll be out in the vines later today to see how effective the actions of the grower ‘syndicats‘ have been.

Yesterday in the vines, including a tented approach to protect vines in Corton-Charlemagne:
 

Always a favourite view – Chevalier-Montractet

The view over Pernand

Pernand from the hill of Corton

A block of Pernand Corton-Charlemagne under tent!