Vineyard Floraison

The weather is far from settled – or for that matter, warm – we have about 18-22° in the forecast for this week – more rain than sun, too!

But the first/early flowers can be seen, here and there, across the Côte de Nuits. It looks like we will be in ‘peak flowering’ by the end of the week, certainly the weekend. So, for argument’s sake, let’s say Friday for mid-flowering, add 100 days, equals harvesting from the 25th September(?) Let’s see…

I’ll keep you posted…

It was cool to see the first flowers of 2016 yesterday – even more-so to have the ‘buzzing’ accompaniment of the hover-flies too. I only had my phone with me, so I’m doubly impressed by this result!

This picture was taken in the southern Beaujolais Villages area – but truth be told it’s a semi-fake! These gamay vines are actually in a nice ‘garden’ in the city of Villefranche – the commercial capitol of the Beaujolais region – so they are not really in a ‘true’ vineyard area.

But they are real flowers – the outliners for the vignoble. They are a few days ahead of the ‘real vineyards’ as the city has a temperature advantage versus the vineyards – and remained ‘frostless’ this year. But yesterday was 28°C in the Beaujolais, so the real ‘floraison‘ is clearly not far away…

[EDIT:]The first flowers reported in a real Burgundy vineyard today by Jean-Philippe Bret in (chardonnay) Pouilly-Vinzelles!

Meursault 1er Clos des Perrières – today.

Well, having been away for 10 days, I though that my first job today should be to tour the vines of the Côte de Beaune – more particularly the place where flowering usually starts in the chardonnay. Two years ago I found the very first flowers in this nicely wind-shaded, south-facing spot in Meursault Perrières – on the 21st May. Today, a little over two weeks later-on in the year and the flowers are still waiting to open. It’s forecast to be warmer this week – and we do indeed have some nice sun today – maybe that will be a catalyst, but the weather forecast is far from settled…

The palissage, or training of the vines has been partly done – those shoots not affected by the frost are sufficiently large to train between the wires, but the new/second-growth is not quite developed enough to reach the wires yet – the wires protect the vine growth from the wind which can easily rip-off the shoots. Given the lateness of the growth, we need a beautiful summer to start very soon, or there will be zero chance of second-growth bunches reaching ripeness – even the first growth may not be ready before the end of September…

One vigneron I spoke to today related that the majority of his vines have responded quite well to the challenge of the frost, he won’t have much fruit this year but he’s pretty sure that he will have something to prune so that he has fruit next year – which was his biggest concern – though one of his vineyards in Savigny ‘still looks like winter…’

I will, of-course, keep you posted…
 

Perrières – flowers tight shut…

Perrières – palissage

Perrières – something furry……

Looking over Meursault Charmes to Puligny

‘Fallow’ Meursault Charmes du Dessus