Two atmospheric pictures courtesy of Caroline Lestimé of Domaine Jean-Noël Gagnard; spreading a little manure compost in their vines yesterday, in the mist…
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in the misty vines…
Harvests
back from the frosty côtes
Just back from one and a half days in the Côtes, and maybe this is already a good time to discuss the weather.
The landscape this week was quite magical – in fact my photos don’t do it justice; freezing mist but still with about 400m of visibility, sometimes more as glimpses of the hillsides made appearances.
The temperature was about -5°C causing the moisture in the air to crystallize onto all available surfaces; the vineyards looked like there had been snow. As for those temperatures – about time too! For weeks after the 2011 harvest the Côtes had warm temperatures and dry, sunny weather, in fact 2011 was one of the driest on record, despite intermittent rain through the summer. This was perfect for finishing the tasks like ploughing, and for those who do, pushing the soil up against the vines to give a small extra advantage against cold temperatures – temperature that we’ve yet to see.
A few growers I chatted with had been rather concerned because the temperatures had rarely been ‘minus’ so the vines weren’t completely dormant; many seemed to have retained their sap and even a few (mainly planted against walls) were showing the first signs of buds – it could have been a catastrophe if the Côtes were suddenly plunged to -20°C. This week’s weather seems like a good nudge to the vines to sleep a little, hopefully it’s just enough to ward off the worries.
I do wonder though; despite this general lack of ‘full’ dormancy, many were out in the vines, pruning and burning the waste – could it be a problem? I guess I’ll have to ask somebody who knows all about it – who better than Jeremy Seysses!!
Your summary captures the general anxiety pretty accurately. I would add a bit of context, namely that everyone got a real reminder of what a sudden drop in temperature can result in with the drop that happened in December 2009, which bears a large responsibility in the poor yields of 2010 and the many replanting one can see as one drives down the RN 74/D974. For me there is no shaking off that memory and I think of it every time I look at the thermometer and look at the weather forecast, much like every precocious vintage has me wondering if we risk getting another 2003 all over.
But going back to the question of the possible impact of pruning before any serious prolonged cold has hit. I am personally not too concerned about it. Most wine regions don’t get as cold as Burgundy over the winter and while the storage of the sap deeper in the vine is a good thing for that vine’s longevity, it is by no means fatal. As you can imagine, much of the US and most southern EU countries, etc. Don’t drop to -10°C terribly often. That we are attached to it is no doubt very much a reflection that in a decade in which we have seen all sorts of weather extremes and are concerned about climate change. There is something deeply reassuring about having a winter that looks like winter and a summer that feels like summer. I am certain that you can appreciate the psychological dimension of this. I do not think that this will necessarily have any real impact on the vintage, provided that we get a normal Spring or don’t get a 20°C drop in temperature overnight.
I hope this makes some sense.
Best,
Jeremy
harvest – nicolas rossignol (volnay)
A vintage summary and some nice pics from Nicolas Rossignol:
Many pictures and stories !
A tricky vintage in all the world , a winemaker from NZ came to work with me and he told me hard vintage in NZ this year, see the best and the worst !
As in france !
I spent time with Olivier Lamy, Thomas Bouley and Davis Croix in the vineyard before harvest, to taste our grappes, to decide when to start, and we saw the grapes of some neighbours …. not the same vintage for everybody, for people how worked hard in the vineyard vintage will be easy, beautifull small grappes, small berries, black and blue, ripe ( even with a low level of sugar, 11.5 12 % no more ) perfectly healthy, that’s why i used so much whole bunch ! With pommard fremiers and volnay chevret 100% ! , no more than 5 % rot in the worst vineyard ! when some people said 15 20% and pink grapes!
At the end: dark colors, lot of nice fruits, élégant tanins, really charming wines, not for a long keeping but very well balanced, and like each time good estate gonna make very good wines for the others it’s gonna be very hard !Domaine NICOLAS ROSSIGNOL
27 RUE DE MONT
21190 VOLNAY FRANCE
www.nicolas-rossignol.com
harvest – closer to home…
Just to show what an egalitarian I am 😉
Here are some pictures from ‘Emmental’ an occasional commenter here – he picked his own pinot noir on the 15th September (only about 90 miles from my house) in Vully. Vully is in the Swiss Canton of Fribourg, close to lake Neuchâtel.
Emmental in his comment here notes that the physical characteristics of his grapes were similar to those of the Côte d’Or this year, and he notes a yield of 600 grams per square metre – I’m sure he will correct me, but I roughly calculate that to be the equivalent of 2.43 tones per acre, or (not surprisingly!) exactly 6 tonnes per hectare. Now according to wikipedia, one hectolitre of red wine needs 130 kg of grapes, so 6,000/130 = 46 hl/ha.
That’s the best that I can come up with at this time of the morning 🙂
harvest – at drc…
harvest – a couple of quotes
harvest – domaine louis chenu (savigny)
Très vite alors, nous n’avons pas eu de pluie, ce qui a été presque miraculeux . Nous avons commencé les vendanges le 1er septembre et terminé le 7 . Avec une bonne équipe d’habitués . L’ambiance était très bonne . Nous avons triés deux parcelles plus abîmées sur la table, sinon, les vendangeurs ont bien trié et ensuite d’autres triaient sur les caisses . Les degrés ne ont pas très élevés mais correctes . La vendanges en rouge est peu abondante mais au final de bonne qualité, il y a plus de volume en blanc .
Pour les rouges, nous pensons que le vin sera très fruité et souple avec une belle couleur . C’est un peu tôt, mais il semble que 2011 est plutôt prometteur . Une année de surprises jusqu’au bout ..
Je joins quelques photos .
Merci
Bises
Juliette
Or try this dodgy translation 😉
harvest – so sad…
No more reports from the home domaine this year. A treasured team member and friend was lost on Thursday night whilst heading home to Santenay; hit by a drunk driver near Meursault. The last fruit is coming in today, even the Hautes Côtes which was in theory going to wait another week – it’s time to close the door on 2011 at the domaine.
So sad.
harvest – 6th & 7th september
Tuesday was a relatively quiet day at the home domaine, lucky considering the loss of a team-member, so I chose to roll it into Wednesday’s report. Incredibly given that every day for that last 10 was forecast to rain (two days out) the team remain warm and dry – only the short shower of Sunday morning remains in the memory. There is still rain forecast, but most are now ignoring those forecasts.
Tuesday: Pinot from Ladoix was the only delivery of the day; a very nice plot that’s 100% biodynamically farmed – maybe that’s why about 12% was eventually discarded for a combination of sins – rot or just clumsy bunches of grapes with questionable ripeness. It’s worth pointing out that (including those vines that follow) the average amount discarded this year has been at about the 5% level, spanning 3-12%. Only a couple of plots (Santenay Comme and this Ladoix) have gone over 10%, so this is historically very low, excepting the ‘exceptionals’ like 2005 and 2009.
Wednesday: Plenty of grapes today and ones that looked rather good too. You already saw a pic of the Lavaux St.Jacques in yesterday’s ‘Facebook bunches’ note, but they were nice clusters of small berries – similar to the Vosne vieilles vignes of last week. 7% were discarded after triage. Then came Charmes-Chambertin; the grapes looked just as good as the Lavaux, but were probably picked in the nick of time as they were completely ripe and the individual grapes were becoming a little fragile – because of that 8% were triaged.
Two whites also hit the triage table; Beaune Lulune and Meursault Les Luchets – clean and with good pH – a happy team.
In the cuverie some of the ferments are just about starting and the colour seems to be extracting relatively easily. In some cuvées there seems to be a bit more tartaric acid than usual – lower malic usually indicates a warm growing season – but there’s no point giving any detail at this stage as it’s only the free-run juice that has provided that glimpse – real numbers will come after extraction when the grapes have been pigeaged, remontaged, delestaged or just plain pressed – let’s see.