Travels in Burgundy 2016

some sunday pics – puligny & gevrey…

By billn on October 02, 2016 #travels in burgundy 2016#vintage 2016

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 Puligny-Montrachet.

A morning wander around Puligny was followed by a late afternoon walk around Gevrey. Very few people were harvesting today, despite really beautiful – if much cooler – weather, at least there is some wind, so probably not much problem with rot after the rain of Saturday. I saw Florent Garaudet harvesting some Puligny villages in the morning, and just popped into Domaine Pierre Damoy to say ‘hi’ as I saw them triaging. They are far from finished (they are late pickers) but had some beautiful Bourgogne rouge fruit that came from the commune of Fixin.
 

mainly beaune pics today…

By billn on September 25, 2016 #travels in burgundy 2016

It’s Sunday, and some grapes arrived from Gevrey today – but nothing was doing in the winery – the Gevrey stays in a cold-truck overnight.

A perfect, not too hot, not too cold temperature today, so it was equally perfect for a walk around Beaune, followed by a Cola Zero in Nuits! I met intrepid bicyclist Jeremy Seysses in Nuits – it seems that he will be starting the Dujac harvest tomorrow.

And a few wide-angle pics…

a tour de beaujolais – plus…

By billn on September 20, 2016 #travels in burgundy 2016#vintage 2016

Today I took a day-tour through Beaujolais with a little Saint-Veran and Pouilly-Fuissé tagged on for good measure.

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It started with blue sky and sunshine in Beaune, if only 14°C. Beaujolais, however, was cloudy with a temperature too warm for a pullover, but borderline too cold without – tsk…

I started my Tour de Beaujolais in Brouilly, looking in on the early grapes cut by Château Thivin. It’s nice to see (eventually!) plenty of grapes on the vines – just don’t mention that to those that were hailed around Morgon/Fleurie/Moulin-à-Vent! On the hillside in the Côte de Brouilly I took some images of the goblet vines with their ‘hair up’ – ie with the growth from the arms all tied together above the vine, sometimes using a wooden post in the middle for support.

I then drove on to Regnie (or Regnié or even Régnié depending on what signs you see) before Villé-Morgon for lunch. Next a tour through Chiroubles before returning to Morgon-Bellevue to see the first grapes being triaged at Château de Bellevue – in this case Moulin-à-Vent for the Hospices de Moulin-à-Vent cuvée. The quality looked pretty good – triage was more cursory than in Beaune – but to my eyes the grapes looked very good – just a little rot to be pulled out. The first part of this tank (the bottom of the tank) was getting whole clusters and then afterwards it was going to get some destemmed grapes on top – here was also the tallest ‘giraffe’ I’ve seen! I’ll try to post some short videos of this – try! EDIT: Okay, 3 days later:

  • Gamay processing and a big giraffe:

Then onwards through Fleurie and onto Moulin-à-Vent / Romaneche-Thorins. Whilst checking out some of Jadot’s vines here near the windmill I saw a slow-moving tractor with cases of grapes – Labruyère was stamped on the cases – I decided to follow! Edouard Labruyère was at home and showed me the grapes: “We have about 14 hectares and we lost about 4 of them to the hail – we have three parcels which we won’t even bother trying to harvest – but if I can ever use the word ‘good’ in connection with hail, at least this hail came at a good time, i.e. early in the grape maturing phase!

“Today is our first day of harvesting and we’ve done the hailed vines first, and apart from a little rot, they look good – though I’ll be destemming this, as you can see the hail marks on the stems. Over the whole harvest we will probably destem about half of the harvest. We’re going to take our time harvesting, probably doing about 1-1.5 hectares per day – we should be done in 8 days or-so.”

So, a little hailed grapes to control – but not everywhere – still a little rot to triage as the mildew pressure was as bad here as anywhere in May/June – but the dryness then took over. There’s actually been less rain here than in the Côte d’Or – only 18mm in the last week – they might have liked a little more. It’s very early days, as this is the first day harvesting for some, many others have not yet begun. It was the same story as I traveled through Saint-Véran and Pouilly-Fuissé – I saw only 1 team in some distant vines, all the other grapes seemingly still on the vines – some of these tasted ready, others still a little acid-forward.
 

a little pommard…

By billn on September 19, 2016 #travels in burgundy 2016#vintage 2016

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…
 

abbaye de la bussière

By billn on September 14, 2016 #travels in burgundy 2016

dsc01020Touring the Hautes Côtes de Nuits today, in particular the Valley of the Ouche. Here is the classic Burgundy canal-boat land, and with plenty of cafés along the way.

Also here is the Abbaye de Bussière, up-market stop-over par-excellence. I took a coffee before an Aston-Martin club came for afternoon tea – the hotel hosted the Lamborghini and Porsche clubs in last weeks too – fortunately none were present while my trusty Scoobydoo took centre-stage in the car park.

Owner Clive Cummings gave me a pre-coffee tour of the buildings and grounds that he managed to buy from the Diocese of Dijon in 2005; “It was used as a retreat for clergy but its upkeep became too expensive. When we came it was all suspended ceilings and water that would freeze-over in the winter” laughs Clive, but behind the ceiling tiles remained the beautiful vaulted ceilings. In 2006 he and his wife managed to open the hotel with 9 rooms in good shape – now they have 20 – up to 30 are possible. With 2 restaurants and 34 staff, they have an almost 1:1 staff-to-guest ratio!

The Cistercian beginnings here were in 1131, but that was ‘take-2’ as their first attempt burnt down and so these buildings were built nearer the Ouche river – just in case! During it’s life it presided over many estates and hundreds of monks, but only 7 remained by the time it became state property at the Revolution. There were multiple owners and uses before it was eventually bequeathed back to the church. The ‘cellier’ is a beautiful building with an old wine-press – much the same as that in the Clos de Tart, the (admittedly cool temperature) ‘cellar’ is basically at ground level – I assume the water-table is a little too high here for ‘depth.’ Clive has plans for a wine club for his regular visitors and tasters; collecting and then storing the wines that the club members will have previously tasted from cask.

I have a feeling that I’ll be returning to test their twice monthly weekend brunches – with a spotlighted winemaker too!
 

some views from near the abbaye de morgeot in chassagne…

By billn on September 14, 2016 #travels in burgundy 2016

And note that, since yesterday, my header picture is now accurate, as cremant producer Louis Picamelot started their harvest yesterday!
 

how green & how red are my grapes? (beaune today)

By billn on September 13, 2016 #harvests#travels in burgundy 2016#vintage 2016

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…
 

Burgundy Report

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