Exciting first day watching the grapes come in at the Hospices de Beaune #Hospices2016pic.twitter.com/H4mACtWJX9
— Jasper Morris (@justjasper) September 20, 2016
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Harvests
a little pommard…
Today I took my ‘B’ camera in hand for a jog around the vines – Pommard was my choice. Hardly a soul in the vines – certainly no pickers. The weather was cloudy but warm enough and with a little breeze too – drying, I hope. The first flashes of sun showed themselves about 5pm…
My favourite road…
Gebnerally the cleanliness of grapes is quite good – but not always!
Pommard La Levrière
Château Pommard, next to La Levrière…
Château Pommard
Château Pommard
New signs for Pommard…
Peeking over the wall – another crop…
Looking over Les Grands Epenots…
Les Grands Epenots…
Clos des Epeneaux – from above…
harvesting: exactly how much mud can you get on your boots?
The last days of the last week delivered a lot of rain for some – but the growers say not too much – but further north it waned. Maranges and Santenay had approaching 50mm, in Meursault it was closer to 30mm and by the time the weather-front reached Beaune there was a deposit of only 15mm. The Côte de Nuits saw much less. It was enough to dissuade almost everyone from entering the vines with their secateurs, though I did find the team from Domaine Boisson-Vadot (Meursault), on Saturday afternoon, in some of their Meursault villages – mud clinging tightly to their boots! For this parcel they estimated at least 60% was lost to the frost. Mud or not, the grapes tasted great!
Sunday, which a few days earlier was forecast to be dry was clearly a washout – heavy rain starting before first light (now about 07h15) – and continuing to about 6pm. All is now dry and the forecast suggests sun and a modest 20-22°C at least until next weekend. Look out for many starting their whites on Monday – or Tuesday with less mud! – and the reds starting to commence from about Wednesday onward.
For my home team, anticipating the lack of grapes and the (quite probably) ridiculous price that they will fetch, we will commence on Wednesday – but with 7 tonnes of Morgon!
Let’s see how that goes 🙂
rain and rainbows…
Yesterday evening about 10pm we were treated to lots and lots of lightening, and occasionally heavy, but essentially modest, rain.
Today, it’s been dark for most of the day, with a little rain here and there too. Just now, however, Beaune erupted with thunder, rain and even a little sunshine and rainbows – pretty, if short-lived – still, it’s nicer in than out 🙂
a beaujolais harvest update
Translated from today’s news email from Inter Beaujolais.
The progresses of the grape maturity in Beaujolais (16,000 hectares between Lyon and Mâcon):
The first secateurs will be used in anger at the end of this week – for the earliest maturing areas.
In terms of climate, the ideal conditions of recent weeks, with hot temperatures and dry weather, has allowed the grape maturatity to progress while maintaining good sanitary conditions. Note, the high amount of sunshine in July and August (more than 100 hours) and approaching records in August, with 20 days of full sun versus an average of 10 days.
The volume (and outside the areas damaged by hail in the spring, which was about 2,200 hectares affected by 50% or more), the harvest should be above the average of the last 5 year’s yields – a more classic harvest of between 700 and 800,000 hectolitres. The weight of the berries is below average, but the average cluster size is quite larger this year – despite the plot-to-plot variablity.
The rains of last night and those announced for the weekend will be beneficial after several very hot, dry weeks. The weather forecast for next week suggests normal seasonal temperatures and sunshine, which should help the vines to achieve their maturity ‘serenely.’ The winemakers whose plots are in the later maturing should also benefit from these weather forecasts.
how green & how red are my grapes? (beaune today)
Despite the header image (above) there’s no harvesting in the Burgundy yet.
Since the big rain of the 5th of September, it’s been pretty warm here – wall-to-wall 30°C – or thereabouts. The weather was supposed to break tomorrow and bring a couple of cooler days with rain – it looked like it would come early today, with darker cloud and some wind in the early afternoon. But by 4pm the cloud was gone – just sun and blue sky remained. The rain is now forecast for Friday, or maybe Saturday…(?)
Up and down Burgundy, almost everyone would be happy with a little more rain, though the need is less in the Côte de Nuits. Even though they lack a little juice, the grapes are looking in quite good condition on the vines – in both colours – those that you can find, anyway! In the Côte d’Or, it’s going to be the vines that saw virtually no frost that will reach ripeness first – Maranges and Santenay were hardly touched, so might already be harvesting about the 20-24th. Those vines that were partially frosted, lost some time and really won’t be ready to harvest before the 26th, possibly a little later – and like the incidence of frost, it will be a question of parcel by parcel ripening.
I’ll keep you posted…
2hl/ha? it ain’t half hot mum!
Beaune, 21h00 tonight
This morning really reminded me of 2015 – getting the gardening done before 10am – before the temperatures got too high.
Late afternoon Beaune sweltered in 37°C – long live aircon I say, having travelled 4 hours from Bern!
Despite this week’s similarity to 2015, this time last year the Côte d’Or whites had already been largely harvested, fewer growers were in the reds, but the equivalent of next week was (red) D-Day for most producers. This year, I don’t expect much to happen before the 20th September, maybe closer to the 26th…
But what are they going to pick? The Côte de Nuits is not THAT bad, but I spoke to David Croix today, who this week was back from two weeks of holiday. “Well, we did quite the most thorough evaluation of the grapes in the Domaine des Croix vineyards that I’ve ever done, it it doesn’t look good. The average was less than one cluster per vine – about 2-3 hectolitres per hectare. I might be a little out and could be surprised and get 5 – but I won’t be getting 15. And we thought that 2012-2015 was bad! Okay this year we pruned late and had a lot of weeds in the vines – that seemed to exacerbate the effect of the frost. I might make 10 barrels this year” How many do you usually make? – was the obvious question – “oh, about 100…”
On that note, maybe it’s better to concentrate on the pretty sky this evening!
there, but for the grace, and projecting a harvest date…
Truly awful hail hit southern France on Wednesday afternoon – there were similar storms in Switzerland too where the ground turned green-white – a mix of shredded foliage and hailstones. Over 1,000 hectares were ‘touched’ in the Languedoc-Roussillon, including most of Pic Saint-Loup. Judging by some of the images, there may not be anything to properly prune for 2017 – i.e. there may also be no grapes next year!
This time, at-least, greater Burgundy was spared, though anything can still happen between now and harvest time. Talking of harvest time, and based on the current state of veraison, it looks like the reds may be ready for picking from the 26 September – of-course some producers habitually wait longer. Usually the whites are picked 7-10 days before the reds, but there are some indications that this year it may only be 1-3 days before the reds. Let’s see!
Yesterday I did a little tour in Beaujolais. The big hail event for them was largely in the crus, little in the south of Beaujolais was touched; Mainly it was the area between Morgon and Fleurie, plus Chiroubles and some Juliennas. These vines were largely stripped of all growth in late May, but the rain that came with the hail was so hard, that afterwards, there was no shredded vegetation to be seen on the slopes – it had all been washed down the drains. Today they have recovered well and look quite healthy, despite being only half the size of usual for the time of year – but, unsurprisingly, I spotted only one bunch of grapes per 8 or 9 vines. It was also easy to see the impact of large hail projectiles on all the hard-wood parts of the vines!!
Southern Beaujolais Pinot 18 August
Southern Beaujolais Syrah 18 August
Southern Beaujolais Gamay18 August
Hail impacts on the wood
ESCA – this vine will not live long…
A blue-green cupric (Cu2+) tinge…
mid-july burgundy vineyard update
“I know it’s only July, but frankly I can’t wait for this vintage to be over. We were proud to have survived the growing seasons of 2012 and 2013, but 2016 is on another level. The harvest will not be better, very few grapes and a massive competition to buy grapes too – probably at prices that will make the bottles unsellable – it’s also probable that some producers and maisons will go out of business – it will just depend on their banks.”
A Beaune grower yesterday evening…
Extra Work
Weeds have been big problems this year – growers don’t recollect them growing so fast before – it’s clearly a vintage for weeds. There is also much extra work in training and pruning; those vines affected by frost growing more like bushes and needing particular care so that there will be something to prune to allow fruit in 2017! It’s interesting to see some occasional plots in the Beaune 1ers that seem to have been abandoned – straggly growth and lots of weeds as high as the vines – here there are of-course no grapes after the frost – some people are either prioritising – or have already given up!
Hail
After the (unreported) hail of the 24th June took out some of Gevrey’s Lavaux St.Jacques, there was more (unreported) hail in Chassagne last Wednesday (13th July) – both were localised and weather reporters simply cannot track these storms.
Mildew
July usually sees the last treatments before domaines go on holiday, but the vineyards are busier than usual. Some are trimming their vines – and quite late versus most years – and others are still treating against the threat of mildew. The weather for the last 5-6 days has joined in the fight against the mildew – there’s been a drying north wind in that time – but the damage has already been done. The northern vineyards of Champagne and Chablis have been decimated by mildew – “If you thought the hail and frost was bad – you should see what the mildew has done.” an owner in both Beaune and Chablis told me on Monday.
Oïdium
The Côte d’Or has suffered much less than Champagne and Chablis, but there is plenty of dew each morning and this isn’t going to help protect against oïdium. Normally you have either mildew or oïdium, but not both – but in a vintage like 2016 the producers are not counting what chickens they have left – indeed they are praying that the pendulum doesn’t swing too far from mildew to oïdium.
The heat
It seems almost churlish to invoke ‘heat’ when we’ve had such a generally cool vintage – but yesterday it was 33°C in Beaune and today it is forecast to be over 36°C. The heat itself isn’t really the problem, rather it is the sudden arrival of such heat without acclimatisation by the vines – “It’s the spikes in temperature are the problem. After the frost, and the mildew, those grapes that survived will probably get roasted today…”
Sometimes I’m really surprised how upbeat some producers can be – when not talking about their vines. But did I mention that storms are (again) forecast by Meteo-France for the Côte d’Or later today……(?)