Montrachet

Puligny

Romanée-Conti

Fleurie…

It’s started to get warm, but it’s only 10 days since the candles, windmills and burners were doing their thing in many parts of Burgundy.

The worst of the frost seemed to be, as usual, in Chablis. Temperatures as low as -6°C were seen near Chichée – and that’s not a place that’s afforded much protection; Their premiers are quite distant from sources of water (for aspersion) and the village wines can’t really support the cost of using candles. I know that the assessors from the insurance companies have been on site this week – with early estimated of 25-40% losses – in places. In other places, mainly the higher value vineyards, where candles and water sprays were used, the damage seems to be much, much smaller – but we will see – it’s how the flowering and grape development goes that counts…

In the Côte d’Or it has, so far, been another year of prophylactic vine protection measures. Yes, temperatures hovered around -3°C one night, but the weather was also dry and windy. The next day was also supposed to be minus 3°C, but turned out cloudy and closer to zero. Again, we will have to see how the flowering goes, but damage seems rarer than in Chablis – which was already ahead of the rest of Burgundy in growth.

The Hautes Côtes de Beaune had a few losses – particularly near Paris l’Hôpital in the south of the Côte d’Or, but the Côtes Chalonnais, Mâconnais and down into Beaujolais seemed to have avoided damage.

The next days are forecast to be cooler again after some days hovering around 25°C – but nothing close to frosty, indeed many domaines have already cleared away their candles…

Of course, it’s very early, but the current stage of growth is already indicative of a late August harvest !!

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Although, to an extent, already deployed in Chablis, the last of the candles, ‘smudge-pots,’ trace-heating wires, heat-cannons and windmills were put in place in the Côte d’Or during Wednesday and Thursday.

For the last two nights, they have been put to use with temperatures well below zero Friday-Saturday, after the night before showed roughly 0°C. It seems tough in the Mâconnais too…

The frost of recent years has arrived around the 10th April – it’s 2 weeks earlier in 2026 – but with enough early growth that there will certainly be some yield-reducing damage.

For now, all we can do is watch and take stock – these are sleepless nights for the working vignerons…

It was the Grand Jours de Bourgogne last week – so the town was very busy – I don’t think that there were many free hotel rooms as 2,700 people were registered….

Actually, since covid-time, I stopped going to very large tastings with (literally for the GJB) over 1,000 tasters in a room better suited to 2-300, and with so much spitting too 🙂

I anyway prefer to meet one-on-one in a quieter place – the producers’ actual domaine, for instance – and I’m already up to 223 domaines since the (roughly official) launch of my 2024 (vintage) tasting campaign on the 1st October. But the GJB does have a number of tastings outside of the official 2-3 regional tastings per day of the official program – here you can also find interesting things – so I found a couple of those to go to 😉

I also managed to tour around the vines – mainly in the Côte de Beaune last week. Much of the standing-water (in the flats of the vineyards) has receded, so it’s starting to look a little less like 2024, even though I was met with lots of rain on Wednesday !!

Thursday and Friday were sunny days, the views Spring-like, with the flowers blossoming between the vines – the almond blossom is already a memory. You can see that much of the pruning is done, and a large part of laying the bagettes (the main shoot) onto the metal wire is complete. The buds are starting to bulge at the end of the shoots, but I didn’t see any single leaves yet – which hasn’t stopped the caterpillars from starting to eat the buds!

I saw only one vineyard where candles have been deployed in the Côte d’Or – to counter frost – and that was in some villages Santenay, but I hear on the grapevine (literally!) that candles were lit over the weekend in Chablis – maybe some water-sprays too !!

This week, I was in the Mâconnais…

Beaune pizza time

High up in Pommard

Beaune Clos des Ursules

Beaune Bressandes

Corton

Corton

Great tasting

Montrachet on Friday

What a lovely week – first, I love the 2024s that I’m tasting and secondly – the weather!

Whilst it’s been chilly and close to 0°C in the mornings, every afternoon touched 20°C. Even my jogging has been well-served by shorts and a t-shirt.

Of course, we’ve had, what just about everyone will was agree, was a proper winter season. Though the pessimists will certainly say that it was too short…

The cool/cold weather ended abruptly about 10 days ago and the countryside is already blooming – the trees, even the magnolias, are close to full bloom. Of course, the pessimists (again) only point to the fact that their vines are about 15 days ahead of the average – about 2 months ahead of the St.Glace – about the same as they experienced in 2020 and also 2021 – but those vintages brought two very different results.

The candles are largely stockpiled and waiting for deployment – April 8-10 has been a common timing for frost in recent years, and that’s still a long way off !!

This week in Chablis: