harvest – 2nd september

Update 5.9.2011(2.9.2011)billn

Team Camille Giroud 2011
The Home Team 2011.

So every year there are new cast of players at the home domaine:
– Kiwi Anna, sauvignon blanc winemaker at Oyster Bay
– Kiwi Blair, vineyard manager at Carrick
– Springbok Nathaniel, from Nederburg in Paarl
Plus, of-course, the more regular crew – naturally there is no discussion whatsoever about the up-coming rugby world-cup, only how fetching England look in their new black strip!

Today we started with pinot from Beaune 1er Les Avaux – the vines are a good age, but unfortunately they normally deliver quite a large berry size – big surprise this year when I was expecting cherries, the grapes if anything smaller than the Savigny-Peuillets and Aloxe-Valozières of yesterday; virtually nil rot, but again the annoying 1-3 unripened green berries which need to be removed – from almost every bunch – tsk! Still, I expect a good cuvée from this.

By 11:30 we were ready for our first tranche of Meursault – not quite as tough to triage as yesterday’s (which actually tastes quite okay in the settlement tank), but not fun either – it turns out that there had been hail in this vineyard and whilst there was no obvious hail damage, we had to run the table pretty slow.

Ladybird quotient is perhaps a hint lower than yesterday but there are still many.

Lovely lunch…

Of-course when doing whites you have to wait for the press to finish it’s run before you can start the next lot of triage – it was close to 4pm before we started to remove (just the same amount of) rot; very slow table and and the mercury touching on 30°C. I think in my 8th consecutive year of harvesting, that’s a temperature record. The storms and hail have been put back a day, just like every day for the last 3 – we are certainy lucky compared to Bordeaux…

Just for the record, and as an hommage to the ladybirds, yesterday we consumed:

04 Griotte
04 Latricières
04 Clos St.Denis
04 Carrick Pinot Noir (screwcapped, no ladybirds – like the Griotte – and perhaps the best!)
08 Chassagne Morgeot (red)

Leave a Reply to Tom BlachCancel reply

There are 3 responses to “harvest – 2nd september”

  1. Tom Blach3rd September 2011 at 7:40 amPermalinkReply

    By coincidence I had an 06 Excelsior yesterday. It had some elegance on the nose but was rather a crude and obese wine in general, curiously full of bitterness but seemingly without tannin. Maybe it’s meant for ageing.

    • billn3rd September 2011 at 11:37 amPermalinkReply

      I’ve got to agree Tom.

      At first I thought this 05 smelled like Syrah – it did eventually show some pinot character but über ripe for me. The 04 ‘basic’ wine whilst ripe was much, much lovelier. I think we may have the 06 Excelsior to taste tonight…

  2. Claude Kolm5th September 2011 at 2:58 amPermalinkReply

    Excelsior that you both are referring to is Cabernet Sauvignon from South Africa that sells for $8-10 here in CA?

  3. Claude Kolm5th September 2011 at 3:01 amPermalinkReply

    OK, now I see that Carrick in NZ makes a Pinot Noir called Excelsior that, alas, is about $75-85 here.

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