It was a cool start in Beaune today, 17 degrees at nine in the morning – in the context of August 2026 that’s as cool as it gets, and with a little bit of a breeze too – order was restored in the afternoon with 31°C 🙂

At 09h00 this morning, the picking team of this year’s home domaine were obviously out in the vines, but their start wasn’t too early today, they start at just 08h30. The casual starting time reflects this year’s modest harvest volumes – usually 50-70% lower yields for the reds, better for whites but still often not more than 50% again – in 2026 it’s all about the lack of juice. More on that later.

It’s the northern part of Beaune that we’re harvesting today, plus a small parcel in Savigny-lès-Beaune too – villages. It won’t be a long day…

Our first grapes are from Beaune 1er cru Cent-Vignes.

We are harvesting and sorting 4 different parcels – two on high, and two that are lower. The lower parcels are on a more alluvial soil that drains too well for this vintage – the higher, usually more draining parcels on the slope have fared little better due to their excellent drainage – no advantage here in 2026, so due to the hydric stress, it’s one of the most affected areas with lots of vine leaves turning yellow. The grapes, however, look not bad at all. In fact, there are plenty of grapes – it’s just that I’ve never seen such consistently small bunches. With our chosen approaches for sorting, there’s not that much triage to be done; in fact, I’ve rarely seen such minimal intervention during triage – but there’s so very little juice.

This year, the case collecting the ‘trie’ under our vibrating table doesn’t collect very much, and what it does collect is bone-dry – something that I’ve never seen before.

We’re making a mixture of whole cluster and fully de-stemmed – the whole clusters in the bottom of the fermentation tank, which were then covered by the de-stemmed grapes. The whole bunches/clusters are self-explanatory, but we used a special sorting machine, the Mistral, to further sort the de-stemmed grapes. I last used a Mistral during the 2013 vintage; it uses compressed air to blow away the sub-optimal (different density) grapes. In the circumstances of 2026, it worked very well; the ‘Mistral triage’ was around 90% dried, hard grapes. And the other 10% of good grapes that we lost? The boss observed mordantly, “At this stage, if you’re talking about the difference between 15 and 13 hectolitres per hectare, who cares, provided it’s been well triaged!”

Lunch had some lovely Champagne, Chablis and red Chassagne.

During our afternoon session, we finished the Cent-Vignes, then had a small Savigny-interlude – it’s not a big parcel. These were the largest clusters of the day, with more juice than the Beaunes, but versus a typical vintage, the clusters were still below average size. Not much to triage again, and kept as whole bunches.

Our last parcel was from young (5-years-old) vine Beaune (villages) Blanchefleurs. Just the second vintage here and the domaine’s own massale selection. Such tiny, but beautifully presented clusters of pinot – fit for La Tâche rather than Beaune! This small parcel was placed into a ceramic Klever, with some foulage (pressing of the grapes) and then sealed for a carbonic maceration. It will be fun to see how that turns out.

By 5pm, there’s only the clean-up that’s left for today. There was one novelty though, around 19h00 came thunder and lightning – oh, and by 19h30 there was plenty of rain too !!

Day 1 learnings:
Very small grapes rather than a lack of grapes are defining the vintage volume here.
Impressively dry on the triage tables – very little lost juice – probably just because there is so little juice.
Almost no fauna was found in the triage – the world of insects had to find different places for refuge and water this year.
Even the dried/drying grapes showed zero ‘off-flavours’ – that’s a first for me, since I started to triage in 2004. It’s a shame that I can’t compare to 2003…
The pinot-fruit is ripe-flavoured but pure; I see no prune or overdone flavours at this early stage

To be continued…

Today’s pics:

Baby bunches

One side good – the other (sunny) side dry…

Carbon dioxide …

Pinot through the CO2 mist…

De-stemmed on top…

Lunch !!

Tool of the day…

Looks like sorting by Hoka…

Trie – as dry as can be…

Arty giraffe !!

Back from the summer pause and now it’s time to concentrate on content – oh, and there’s a harvest coming too !!

There are already a few outlier domaines who are in the vines, picking grapes – more on that later. The crémant harvest kicked off in a more concerted fashion, with a new record early harvest, they are almost a week underway. Likewise, parts of Beaujolais – even in the crus – are following suit for still reds too.

Although we had a wet first quarter – lot’s of standing water in flat areas of vineyards that were reminiscent of 2024 – this year has panned out very differently to 2024. So much so, that before further posts on the harvest itself, I wanted to compare this 2026 vintage with other recent hot vintages:

The 2026 vintage based on official vineyard assessments of ‘heat-sum monitoring*’ versus other benchmark warm years

*base 10°C tracking, base indicies from the Chambre d’Agriculture (Bourgogne Franche-Comté):

The Key Thermal Comparisons

• 2026 vs. 2009 & 2015:
  2009 and 2015 are known for warm, sunny, and stable ripening periods. In contrast, 2026 has been defined by unprecedented, indeed volatile, thermal anomalies, such as a historic May heatwave featuring a weekly average temperature 10°C above the monthly normal for May, and additional June/July canicule events featuring daytime peaks of 38°C to 40°C paired with tropical nights exceeding 24°C.
• 2026 vs. 2018:
  While 2018 was characterised by a generous, warm summer and swift ripening, 2026 demonstrated significantly more extreme early-season spikes. 2026 achieved growth milestones (such as bunch closure and initial véraison) roughly 10 to 15 days ahead of the trajectories seen in the late-2010s vintages.
• 2026 versus the recent precocious benchmarks of 2020, 2022 & 2025:
  The 2020 and 2022 vintages are well-known for their early vegetative starts and high heat sums. 2026 tracked closely to these two years during bud-burst and early spring, but moved ahead of even those vintages by the summer. By mid-June, 2026 was outpacing 2020 and 2025 by at least 8 days, and by late June, it confirmed an advance of 5 days compared to 2020.
• And the one that you’ve been waiting for – 2026 versus the historic heat standard of 2003:
  The 2003 vintage has long stood as the gold standard for intense summer heat in Burgundy. However, by mid-July, the 2026 vintage surpassed 2003’s heat accumulation. Specifically, as of Jul 12, 2026 recorded 940°C in accumulated temperatures since Mar 01, compared to 91°C* for 2003 at the exact same date.

A different comparison:

But what is the phenological impact of all this heat?

This concentrated thermal mass created a “flash” cycle. While previous hot vintages like 2015 or 2018 allowed steady, sun-drenched development, 2026 forced a lightning-fast flowering period in under a week, pushing the earliest parcels toward potential harvest dates as early as Aug 20 to Aug 25.

A newly Michelin 2-star (grapes!) producer has already told me that they currently see the 2026 vintage more like an (even more) extreme version of 2020, than a 2003-style vintage – of course, that’s just one data point, and before picking too…

However, the heat in 2026 has been so intense that it hit a ceiling: unlike 2018 or 2020, where in those vintages heat consistently advanced maturity, the extreme thermal and hydric stress of 2026 has triggered physiological blockages (‘blocages de maturation‘), causing a sharp divide between maturing plots and those entirely stalled by the heat.

And what about differences between the Côte de Beaune and the Côte de Nuits?

The peak summer weeks of 2026 delivered both a thermal and hydric parting of the waves between the Côte de Nuits and Côte de Beaune. While both sectors experienced historic heat sums, the Côte de Beaune experienced more early-season hydric stress and heat spikes. Conversely, the Côte de Nuits experienced more localised weather anomalies, including a severe mid-July hailstorm around Marsannay and into Dijon.

Effectively, the climate of June and July 2026 created two distinct ripening environments across the Côte d’Or:

Côte de Beaune: Early Stress and High Acid Degradation
The Côte de Beaune entered the peak summer weeks under significant hydric-stress. While it received an exceptional maximum of 52 mm of rain in early May (centered around Meursault), subsequent weeks dried out rapidly.

During the mid-July heatwaves, the Côte de Beaune recorded extreme daytime highs frequently touching 38°C to 40°C. This sustained thermal ‘attack’ led to a rapid degradation of malic acid in the grapes. However, total acidity remained structurally stable because the lack of rain prevented potassium uptake, preserving high tartaric acid levels.

Côte de Nuits: Severe Localized Storms and Hail Damage
The Côte de Nuits experienced a volatile meteorological pattern during the peak summer weeks. The northern sector entered July as the driest zone in the region (recording only 23 mm to 24 mm in late spring/early summer). A drought was that broken broken between July 15 and July 18 by intense, localised storms, e.g. A major storm tracked through Premeaux, Nuits-Saint-Georges, Vosne-Romanée, and Vougeot on July 15th, quickly dropping 25 to 30mm of water. In the Hautes-Côtes de Nuits, Meuilley even recorded 53 mm of rain.

Across both regions, the extra heat has degraded nearly all the malic acid. Of course, the producers are monitoring individual parcels closely…