Finally! you say – a bit of Côte de Nuits action!

Today, a small tour around Gevrey centre, followed by an excellent lunch in the bistro of Rôtissèrie du Chambertin (good value too) and then a walk through Clos de Bèze to recover. Although only about 21°C today, the sun was hot – only later in the afternoon was there more cloud and a threat – but no more – of rain.

Clos de Bèze – despite its lofty status – is a great place to get an average view of how the grapes are progressing; it starts low but goes quite high on the hill, there are dark areas by the forest too – very different to the sunny, lower and mid-slope vines. The grapes look very clean, very small and the clusters have the weight and hardness of small hand-grenades – all seem very clean of rot so-far. The leaf colour of first vines of each row that face the sun already have the look of autumn (see right), but behind, as the rows continue, they seem pretty normal. In just a few places – for instance the first vines next to the road (Route des Grands Crus) as you approach Morey St.Denis, the lowest leaves are brown like November – yet like elsewhere, the vines along the rows seem fine.

Overall the veraison is a little more advanced than some of the Côte de Beaune vineyards I’ve seen, but not 100% done. The taste of these (€100/kg?) grapes is largely sweet and round – like the whites – probably because malic acid seems relatively low in this vintage. Clearly there’s plenty of skin this year though, and it has quite a good taste – so-far…

Building-site Gevrey-Chambertin:

Clos de Bèze:

A clos in the clos…

A long way down

A long way down 2

Darker near the forest…

Some ‘not so green’ harvesting…

Is that a toilet?

Looking up to the trees…

No no he’s not dead, he’s, he’s restin’!

Not possible to take pics of Bèze without this…

This one, defintely dead!

Perfectly cut for the sun…

Well, nobody else was doing it!

It’s been a pretty rainy week – there was a little this morning too, but mostly just cloud after about 10h00. Indeed we’ve had more than 60mm in the last week, which is such a contrast to basically nothing in July! It’s been hard for the young vines – you can see some with yellowing leaves, but nothing (yet!) like the vines stripped of leaves that we saw in 2003 when in certain vineyards the roots couldn’t go deep enough to slake their thirst – Beaune Clos du Roi springs readily to mind.

May 2015 started cool and wet and ended up almost 30°C. June had 2-3 days of heavy rain, July, depending on where you were in the Côtes had 1mm to 10mm – but only on the one day. The vineyards largely looked in super condition before this August rain, despite the dry weather, but the recent rain has eased vigneron’s concerns considerably.

As you can see (below) veraison is not yet finished in this part of the Côte de Beaune – we have potential alcohols of about 8-9% at the moment. So-far in August, despite the odd spike approaching 40°C it’s been relatively cool versus July. As veraison is not yet, or only just, finished and the weather is now more changeable, it’s still much too early to conclude anything meaningful on the character of the wines that will come – but in about 3 weeks we’ll be harvesting and all will become clearer. So-far, and as you can see, the berry size is rather small – like 2010 or less – and the sanitary conditions look very clean indeed. Let’s see how the weather progresses and whether it will stay this way, or if the grapes will get the chance to suck up a little water…

Ladoix – below the road…

Looking towards Corton

Pinot Noir – almost full veraison…

Pinot Noir – less advanced

Pinot Noir – more advanced

Chardonnay

Recently treated…

Pinot Gris

Clos de Meil 😉

Looking towards Bressandes…

 Oïdium today in the Côte de Nuits…

The harvest date: Some people are mentioning the 5th of September as a potential harvesting date, which is entirely possible, but as of today, it’s still too early say whether the 5th of September will be the start date, or the finishing date!

We seem to have the potential for a record early vintage, or just a modestly early vintage – though there’s still time for even that to change.

The weather has been so dry that:

1. The vineyards look resplendent…
2. There is no rot to be found anywhere….
3. But it’s becoming very stressful for the young vines – those suffering the most having yellow leaves nearest the ground, it’s really time that they were allowed to drink
4. The humid conditions of 2014 allowed fruit flies to multiply late into the season – so-far it looks like that won’t be the case for suzuki and friends in 2015. Fingers crossed!
5. The dry heat hasn’t stopped the oïdium though. Usually the pinot noir is more robust than the chardonnay to this problem, but not so in 2015, indeed, this year, the problem is currently most prevalent in the Côte de Nuits, mainly in the Nuits to Morey vines. Right now, this is the single-most important issue for most vigneron(ne)s in that area.

Of-course it’s been a hot year so-far, but as veraison (except a few outliners) is hardly underway, the weather has not yet decided if this will be a cool vintage or an année solaire – cooler weather and maybe storms are forecast for the weekend, but afterwards more hot weather is indicated. Any meaningful rain will be welcomed with open arms, particularly in the Beaujolais and Mâconnais where they didn’t get the same soaking in early and mid June as the Côte d’Or. But, a little welcome rain combined with the hot, but not too hot weather, could see the first chardonnay already being picked by 25th August!

Oïdium excepted, the vintage still looks on course for a good one. The potential yields, despite great flowering conditions, seem good, but not on the high level of 2009. Those vines heavily hailed in the last years, not surprisingly, have a poorer fruit-set, particularly the older vines. Many growers in the Pommard to Beaune axis are talking of possibly 20hl/ha – of-course if it rains a lot, then the grapes will expand and add weight (yield). But honestly, many of those growers will happily accept 20hl/ha!

Note: There are some roasted looking grapes to be seen (there was a photo in my diary yesterday) but look more closely, and they seem not to be the result of sun-burn, rather the result of chemical (sulfur) treatments in the heat of the day, rather than in early morning or late evening. Heat, direct sun and sulfur powder is a bad combination!