16 september – 2015 harvest day 13

Update 17.9.2015(16.9.2015)billn

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For those who were asking, here’s the difference between (very ripe) pinot noir and pinot gris – locally called pinot beurot – from Charmes-Chambertin today.
[2x life-size]

We wake to rain – not particularly heavy, but unyielding. It’s still raining when our first truck of grapes arrives from Gevrey-Chambertin – avec nos Charmes-Chambertin – I bet the cases will be rather muddy (again) too! As it turns out the cases are in good shape – this grower fills them differently to the one in Marsannay.

DSC07888Our grower’s Charmes is always something of a challenge to triage as it’s normally full of rot. This year, hardly a sight of rot – maybe a dozen bunches from many pallets of fruit – and they have also managed the oïdium better than most too, I found only 2 or 3 bunches in the 2 hour session of triage – chapeau! The grapes are dark and ripe, and it seems to me that they were needing to be picked – any hard handling and the berries begin to part with their stems – but yet again, what stems! Like the yesterday’s Marsannay, approaching brown/red colour for many – really lignified. I’ve never seen that before, but it’s really just these last two appellations that have presented themselves in such a way. These are our only grapes of the day – half the cleaning is done before lunch, the rest after. Fortunately today we triaged just a little longer than we cleaned!

Halfway through our triage there was sunshine but also an ever-growing force of wind. After lunch the floors of Beaune are littered with discarded branches and hundreds of horse chestnuts – the temperature was impressive too, whilst this wind alone could easily dry the vines, the temperature was well over 20°C – warmer outdoors than in. In Switzerland we would call this a Föhn wind, the Swiss also took this word for a hairdryer! Our forecasters suggested thunder and lightning would return by 19h00, so I went jogging at 16h30 – the thunder and first drops of rain started before I was back – and I was only out for 30 minutes. Rain returned with a vengence about 18h30.

Will our last appellation arrive tomorrow? It seems not, the talk is now of Friday or even Saturday – hmm – our Paulée is planned for Friday, and I’m not sure it’s allowed to bring in grapes after the Paulée. Tough decisions await 😉

(Part of!) Lunch:

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I said it was windy! :

Agree? Disagree? Anything you'd like to add?

There are 2 responses to “16 september – 2015 harvest day 13”

  1. Adam Peña23rd September 2015 at 10:44 amPermalinkReply

    Hi Bill,

    Regarding the top picture, is the presence of pinot gris in the vinyard due to deliberate planting or spontanious mutation?

    Regards

    Adam

    • billn23rd September 2015 at 11:09 amPermalinkReply

      Hi Adam,
      You might note, and in many pics here over the years, that virtually all ‘red’ vineyards also contain a little pinot gris and chardonnay – even in Le Chambertin – though I’ve not noted it in Romanée-Conti! Likewise there’s some pinot blanc dotted around the chardonnay vineyards too.

      So not a mutation, rather (historically) planned, or in more modern cases, probably poor quality control in the nursery that provided the young vines for planting.
      Cheers!

  2. Adam Peña24th September 2015 at 8:36 pmPermalinkReply

    Hi Bill, thanks for your reply in this and the other thread! Its been great following your harvest report – especially since it seems 2015 will be better equiped to quench the thirst of the worlds burgundy lovers in terms of volume! I do hope however that the acidity can balance the ripe fruit!

    Adam

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