A beautiful sunny day today – and what a lots of grapes – we finished triage just after 9pm – the start was before 9am; pinot from Volnay Caillerets, Volnay Lurets and a couple of Volnay Villages lieu-dits, Beaune Cras and the chardonnay of Chassagne Tête du Clos.

The harvest quality was looking a little dodgy about 10 days ago following lots of rain and high temperatures – the rot was starting to appear. The ‘traditional’ north wind didn’t come to save the day, but the last days of quite hot weather, despite the moist wind of the south-west seem to have delayed any major onset of rot. Today was a mere 23°C, but it is forecast to get warmer, and wetter – rot can still be a big problem for later ripening vineyards. As for ripening, it’s clearly site specific as I understand that Leroy have already picked their Richebourg…

A few pics from today, and I’ll talk more about the grapes and those little red critters tomorrow – one of which is walking across my laptop screen…

The time is nigh – I’ll be at the triage table from tomorrow for five days.

Despite the early predictions of mid-August harvesting and the hot weather of the last couple of weeks, many will not start their picking until the calendar turns to September. There’s a big difference between Côte de Beaune and Côte de Nuits ripeness this year, in fact the ripeness border is sitting somewhere around Beaune just now. I know a number of estates that started to take in some CdB Bourgogne Rouge and parcels of villages whites (Meursault for instance) at the weekend; the first premier crus of Nicolas Rossignol (Volnay Les Angles) were harvested yesterday. Yet as contributors to the forum note, many (though not all) vines in Savigny need the best part of a week longer and so it goes as you head north.

The photos above are this year’s Meursault, Volnay and ladybirds – I’ll be watching out for those little blighters!

Vintage news. More tomorrow…