Arlaud Vendange 2015 – Monday 7th Sept 2015 ( and un peu Sunday)

Sunday :-
Bonjour toute le monde ! Je suis arrive !!! In Morey-St-Denis that is for my 8th vendange avec le premier equipe de Morey.

Various conflicting potential start dates by email to my banking day job over the preceding couple of weeks had been stirring the anticipatory senses. We’d (Cyprien Arlaud et moi) eventually settled on a Monday 7th Sept start which had me departing my NW England home the preceeding Saturday evening for an uneventful drive to Dover for le bateau, rocked along by the peerless Nils Lofgren on the CD and boring Talksport Radio discussion about whether Wayne Rooney is an England football great (absolutely no way for this 3rd generation lifelong Liverpool FC fan who cannot see anything remotely ‘good’ in any aspect of/connection with Manscumchester Utd !).

Ferry at 3.20 from Dover traverse La Manche and arrival in Calais circa 6.00 a.m. Autoroute to Burgundy was uneventful other than two ladies backing into each other with le crunch at a rest area. How common are Common Buzzards on the autoroute ?? I saw lots on fence posts plus other smaller hawks and, around Reims, three hovering kestrels within a mile. CD Music en France was Pink Floyd, Lez Zeppelin, and belatedly Bob Dylan. Arrived on the Cote from Dijon Sud. Had been beautiful weather, if nippy early on at occasional rest area halts when my eyelids started to protest. Driving into Morey nice and warm, just a gentle breeze. Being a Sunday as quiet as the proverbial burial ground. No one in the vines, well it was lunchtime as well as a Sunday ! I’d not seen any ubiquitous white vans in the Champagne vineyards either as visible from the autoroute.

Morey centre was its unchanged (will it ever?) self. Eerily quiet. Car park mort suggesting no domaines had maybe yet started their harvests, I unpacked quickly lugging one case of ‘good’ clothes, and one of vendange ‘rough’ gear, plus case of wine (13 various bottles from home), plus electricals up the steep stone stairs and into my rough wooden floor boarded, metal ex Armee bunk beds, atelier. My home for the vendange, lovely ! Made my bed with sheets and blanket and, resisting temptation for siesta, tripped off en voiture to the Arlaud cuverie. Vines looked good as I crossed the main road. Arlaud cuverie had a new smart & tasteful name sign not there last year. Also new a smart, dark red, expensive looking Buchler Vaslin press outside under the porch front with all the other equipment ready for vendange take off. Full triage supa clean table quietly ready for action plus two fork lifts and lots of stacked cases for the grapes. Whilst I was taking a few photos a BMW X5 pulled around the corner. Turned out to be the Arlaud Dutch importer who was seemingly baffled no one was around & he was being greeted by a crazy Englishman. I helpfully suggested he maybe return later, or better still Monday, and that I would advise Cyprien we’d met.

Back to the le village centre via a diversion ‘around the block’ as it were from the cuverie towards the railway line to nosily see what a massive tower crane was all about. Sacre bleu, une grande construction, akin to a concrete nuclear bunker – and someone had been digging deep from the mound of earth adjacent ! I was to learn later this was the site of a new cuverie for my friend, M Raphet Senior’s, domaine now in the hands of his son, and that Domaine Raphet would move here on completion, consolidating from currently three separate sites around the village. One assumes the cost must be formidable (pronounced in French). Just a very few of us for evening meal with Herve, Cyprien, wife Carol and their lively, growing up fast, perpetual motion, three young daughters – how does maman cope, especially as there is now clearly a fourth event pending – late October I was advised !!!. arol would not admit to me that a boy would be nice but did tell me Greg Gouges and partner also had a child event pending. Only semi regular Bastien was sleeping over in the next flat along from me but we also had a stagiste from Metz who’s learning wine making and has studied in New Zealand plus the engaging Jessica who has given up study of law, and now hails from a Luxembourg based wine brokers (with some link to the domaine) who would be with us for three days only – both living in the domestic property at the entrance to the yard. Both M Stagiste (I’ll recall his name soon !) and Jessica have excellent English to my shame so I can have conversation rather than just for the most part be in listening mode. Plan of attack for Monday was approx 12-14 of us in total would pick Nuits St Georges 1er cru Les Porrets St George (a negoce terroir) and some unidentified other stuff. The full vendangeur team would arrive Tuesday for the main action.

A convivial evening meal, for which, alongside the usual Arlaud PTG & delish chilled Aligote, I offered a Pascal Jolivet 2013 Sancerre ‘Les Caillotes’ , seemed to be well received, and so to bed to be ready for the morning’s gentle sounding start. Sooooo good to be back in this place again. I almost forgot to mention I’d been looking for Monsieur Jean Raphet Senior next door. Not for one of his potentially long one on one tastings of whatever he fancied opening for company with l’anglais but as I’d brought a gift for him (nice Scotch whisky) to partially repay his super generosity when I arrived in 2014 and between us we’d guzzled (well, I did more than he) a delish Domaine Raphet 2000 Clos de Vougeot GC, post which he’d insisted on so generously gifting me another bottle of the same wine (which I still have). There was no sign of habitation next door which looked odd/unusual – maybe en vacances I thought. Maybe later in the week.

Monday:-
No slacking a la Domaine Arlaud with Herve around ! Even with just the handful of us we were off before 7.30 a.m. towards Nuit St Georges in the 2 double cab lorries which sufficed for our party. Vans for the reinforcement would arrive Tuesday. Our first terroir was one of the negoce sites, Nuits St Georges Les Porrets (Poirets ?) St Georges on the far side of town with rock face above and Gouges Clos des Porrets adjacent to the north. Felt a little odd initially handling the secateurs again but the ‘rhythm’ soon clicked ! How nice was this, dry ground, obviously going to be a warm, if not hot, day, and what grapes to be greeted with ???? Prepare to be bored if Bill doesn’t beat me to it which I guess he will. Where’s the rot ? None whatsoever ! Super fruit. Better than 2014 ? We’ll see. Not as much volume is a vague recollection but it’s the first site This looks like it will be an interesting year, tres beau raisins as my employers would repeat. We don’t do many rows here so didn’t take us long but was just brilliant enjoyment and a nice entrée to this year’s vendange.

Back to the cuverie to unload the caisses. We just pushed them into the cuverie as they were, presumably to be attended to later. But where to next ? I couldn’t follow the route below the main road, going north of Morey, not far from the trainline. Seemed like we might be heading for Roncevie but, no, we stopped before that. Cremant I was told, eh ? I’d never got my hands dirty in this plot before in 8 years so assumed it was either newly rented or, more likely, might have been machined in past years. Aligote was the subject matter and plenty of it. All was very relaxed though, and without sounding boring, this took us the rest of the day, with none of the usual pressure and a break for lunch as usual.

Eving saw some of the other regulars arrive, notably Renee, Serge, Daniel plus Jackie who has the linking room behind mine. Dede also rocked up via taxi from the train, pulling a face to tell me had taken him 2 hours. A rather ‘interesting evening meal ensued ! Serge was at the stove cooking a decent volume of fish akin to deep fried whitebait (but bigger than the white bait I’ve had in England!). He also had a fortunately lesser amount of the dreaded escargot (yes, snails) cooking in a very large frying pan – looked like mushrooms but didn’t taste like fungi ! Herve, Cyprien, Carol and the 3 girls all joined us again for a noisy, fun filled, evening. The fish were delicious and a superb match for the chilled Arlaud Vin Blanc Nature (Aligote). Yum ! The escargot were ‘ok’, not really my ‘thing’ but better for not being in the cream and heavily garliced sauce when they were first inflicted on me a few years ago to then much mirth at my expense. And so to bed 2. A Village day Tuesday, the 8th, with a 1er cru end to the day. More in the next instalment from the Morey Diary !

Great fruit this morning – in parts anyway – and that was Santenay Clos Rousseau. There’s a young-vines part, an old-vines part, and a very old-vines part. It seems to me that there’s usually a bit of competition with the grower’s own pickers as to who gets what – we seemed to have a bit of everything today. There are some vintages where occasional barrels of this wine have a grand cru class about their mid-palate and finishing complexity, but frustratingly the assemblage of barrels has never quite managed to capture that – I suppose that the next time it happens, I will have to buy a whole barrel 😉

There was no oïdium here, but there was botrytis in the younger vines with their fatter bunches – all easy to triage, and that’s exactly why we do triage. The form of the clusters from the old vines reminded me quite a lot of the pretty, small clusters from 2010, but generally (as every day) the cluster size was larger.

Just before lunch our chief had frown on his face while speaking into his phone – he’d called one hour ahead, as planned, about delivering the cases to a grower for our afternoon’s grapes – to which the grower replied, ‘Oh we’re now going to pick those vines tomorrow’. Our chief, biting his lip, pointed out that he’d arranged Tuesday because he would have no cases available on Wednesday, as we already had a full day planned. In response to this info the grower got a little ‘shouty’ – that’s the reality of buying grapes, often you have to take what you’re given and say ‘thank-you’ – particularly from sought-after villages…

So no grapes at all this afternoon, we lunched then cleaned – the place was spotless by 15h00. But tomorrow we will have 12 tonnes – lots of coffee will be required as I doubt we will be finished before 10pm.
 

The reception awaits…

Santenay 1er Clos Rousseau

From perfect to ‘bulky’

Let me tell you – it’s quite chilly in the mornings. After handling the grapes for a while, you beg a large, restorative mug of coffee to tease the blood back into your fingers – well, I do anyway! The week is set fair with sunny days and cold nights – the forecasters suggest that temperatures might reach the heady heights of 24°C mid-week, but today, despite endless blue sky, it’s probably peaking at only 18°C.

Today it’s a balance between Côte de Beaune red and our first Côte de Nuits red. The glamorous grand cru, Corton Clos du Roi to finish our day versus ‘villages’ Gevery-Chambertin Le Crais to get us up and running. It’s not a big volume day, probably similar to yesterday with 4-5 tonnes of grapes, but we are slowly warming up to the more challenging days ahead. The Crais was a mix of super clusters and bigger fatter ones – in-line with the usual older/younger vines that we always see – indeed the old-vine part were the prettiest clusters I’ve seen so far. Unfortunately one or two cases of fruit also had more than a bit of powdery mildew (oïdium) which isn’t easy to triage – I’ve actually never seen this much before in any vintage. But, overall, very fine indeed 😉

The Corton Clos du Roi never has tiny, elegant clusters – they were big and warm (picked at 13h00) and seemed rather ripe – but then it’s like that every year, and every year it delivers a stunning wine – so let’s see.

Clean-up was quick, and needed just 75 minutes. A quick jog followed, then a visit to the wash-a-teria – showering beforehand, of-course 😉
 

Gevrey Les Crais

Destemmed Gevrey Les Crais

Encore Gevrey Les Crais

Corton Clos du Roi

Corton Clos du Roi into the tank

Corton Clos du Roi – in the tank!

Also today, as a trial, a new destemmer that should leave more intact berries and leave less stems in the mix. Let’s see!
 

Don’t believe the 2015 hype – well, don’t accept it as universal anyway – this is Burgundy.

Today was a Volnay at the home domaine – Volnay 1er cru and Volnay villages. This vineyard/plot/vine selection delivers plenty of rot – every year. It also usually brings a lot of unripe clusters which are simply thrown away – which I find incredibly frustrating – but it always makes a beautiful, clichéed, floral Volnay – sometimes better than our Caillerets (like in 2011…). This year, there’s still plenty of hard work in triage, but certainly less than usual. Less unripe clusters too – not particularly small berries but I’m pretty sure this will be a good wine.

A modest day – only 4.5 tonnes triaged 😉
 

Lurets 1er Cru

Luerts / dry-ice combination…

‘waste’

Debris

Time to clean

It’s Saturday, and at 07h00 it’s not fully light – where did the summer go?!

Today is a cool, cloudy day – it’s also a relatively modest work-day – and for 2 reasons: 1 we only have two loads of chardonnay to triage today, and 2 there is almost no triage to do! A few leaves need removing, and from 1,800kg of fruit (first load – Meursault Vireuils) I found only one bunch with some porriture – JUST 1 BUNCH!

In the three hours that follow the Meursault (the time it takes to make the pressing), we have the chance to drink coffee, eat croissants, wash all the cases the fruit was delivered in, and take an hour to walk around the market in Beaune. Our day’s second parcel (Chassagne Tête du Clos) has more leaves to triage, seems a hint less juicy but with more dry extract – it is after-all a 1er cru! Unforunately there’s very much less if this. I find three bunches with a little porriture and one with oïdium – not too much for 2.5 barrels worth.

The grapes today have been an appealing (to me) blend of the slightly green, and more than slightly gold – and some in-between. Frankly they looked an ideal combination if you want some complexity. Clearly the skins are thick, and if you chew on those skins you can get a phenolic impression. Really, really, the type of programme on the press will make such a difference. We are running the triage and press without sulfur – only when all the brown juice (except the last press) is in the tank, and we know exactly how much is in that tank, does it receive a calming squirt of sulfur.

So a modest work-day, and we took lunch in a leisurely fashion, but the clean-up was still not complete until almost 5pm. Tomorrow will be a later start – 09h30 – and I’m already calling it ‘Volnay-day…’
 

07h00 – yes, I think those are grapes…

Meursault Vireuils

Pressed Vireuils

Next-up: Chassagne Tête du Clos

Waiting for the door to close and then be crushed.

Lying in wait.

Only two vines today – Beaune Cras and Santenay Comme – both 1er crus. The Beaune is usually quite good from a fine selection of more than 80 year-old vines, the Santenay always needs a lot of triage from this plot/grower – but! – the triage table going at full speed, and not many triagers required. Something of a revelation. I don’t actually remember how good the 2005 Le Comme was, but this was superb. A great start – and only one of those spotty red things to be found in the whole day!

Tomorrow two whites, one from Meursault and the other from Chassagne. More from me as it happens 😉
 

Video Here

 Photo belongs to Aurélien Blugeot

Happy are those in the Côte de Beaune that have already cut a significant portion of their whites – Dominique Lafon and Olivier Lamy leading the way with accompanying social-media images of perfect grapes picked under perfect blue skies.

Yesterday night it turned stormy – a modest amount of rain fell in the Côte d’Or, and the forecast for the days that follow is fine, but in Chablis the rain was much, much heavier – historically high levels for a 12 hour period – and at about 2am there was also hail, big hail – @Meteo89 announced that 600 hectares were touched by hail. Alerted this morning by Meursault vigneron, Patrick Essa, I then spoke with Matthieu Mangenot of Domaine Long-Depaquit and he had the following to say:

“We got got hail last night and some places our domaine vines suffered, such as Blanchot, Clos and Montée de Tonnerre. We also had a huge amount of rain – 60-70mm. My plans were to start on Friday as maturities are already high (Moutonne 12.30°), but I will build a small team to start on Thursday for the places that were injured.”

I’ll update this post as I get more producer info, such as Christian Moreau below…

Very bad hail storm last night – damage in many parcels, so we decided to advance our harvest to Thursday morning to save the grapes that can be saved specially with a cooler weather !!

And from the BIVB in Chablis the following infos:

Saint-Bris, Irancy and Chablis suffered a very localized hailstorm, Tuesday, September 1st between 1:20 ET 2am.

The love of Burgundy is lively and a lot of estimates have been circulating since this morning, but it is still too early to give any definate information. What is known is that the vast majority of the vineyards of Chablis (over 5,000 ha) was spared. Saint-Bris has been touched partially, Irancy more widely.

The plots that have been hailed, the maturity of the grapes and the return of dry weather will allow rapid harvest, which will preserve the essential qualities of this very promising vintage. The harvest will be as expected for all non hailed vines.

We’ll tell you more when we have the information.

Followed by a little more precision from the BIVB (Chablis):

The hailstorm hit a narrow corridor running from Irancy to Chablis.

It went through the towns of Chitry and Courgis, touched Chablis Premier Cru Montmains (and Butteaux and Forêts), crossed Chablis town and damaged Les Clos, and Blanchot on Chablis Grand Cru hill, Montée de Tonnerre and a part of Mont de Milieu.

We think that between 200 to 300 hectares have been damaged at different levels.

The other parts of the vineyard are safe. (Surface of Chablis vineyard : 5400 ha)

The harvest was supposed to begin on Saturday, but the balance between acidity and sugar is already very interesting that why the vine growers decide to harvest the affected vines from today to preserve quality.

It’s impossible for me to give you more information at this stage, I’m sorry about that.

#Bourgogne : de la #grêle et des #pluies intenses cette nuit, dévastatrices pour les #vignobles… #chablis#vendangepic.twitter.com/yArDa49N3q

— La Chaîne Météo (@lachainemeteo) September 1, 2015

Vignes ravagées par l'#orage de cette nuit à #Chablis Qq jours avant les vendanges, désolation pour la viticulture pic.twitter.com/36NF4MO2XZ

— Céline&Fred Gueguen (@ChablisGueguen) September 1, 2015

#Orages Les vignobles de #Chablis et d'#Irancy sérieusement touchés http://t.co/MosbRYICKhpic.twitter.com/ZMvrWroFtg

— L'Yonne Républicaine (@lyonne_fr) September 1, 2015