What a surprising year. Nature will always astonish me. July was a very hot month, with some fine rains which let foresee a very beautiful year, but august changed totally our point of view, we received a lot of rain ! However our opinion is influenced by our experiment. The nature is a model of adaptation, the wineyard dont wait for a special month or a special period to grow.
The rain of August however started the appearance of the rot in the vines. The rot began in the early august, and gathered on certain grapes located in the middle of the plant. The grapes in the foot and in top were not touched by the disease. Thanks to the located apparition of the rot, the selection of the grape during the grape harvest was more easy.
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We begins with the Meunier cépage, the first alcoholic degree was a 10,2 with 9,3 gr acidity. The vines had 30% of rot and we made a very strict selection of the grapes, with a picking team composed of 12 ladies. The meunier is often ready before the chardonnay and the Pinot noir on our soils. During 3 days, we picked up our Meunier, with a average degree over 10° and 8,9 acidity.
After it, we picked the Chardonnay, a big step during the grape harvest. In the press, all have to be cleaned perfectlty to loose the colour of the Meunier pressed before. This cépage had a real nice potential. The taste we have done at the exit of the press was really enthousiastic. The degrees were less similar between the different parcels. Our smallest degree was 9,4° from a young vine, and the higher was 10,6 from the oldest parcel. The acidity was always high wich was surprising, but certainly due to the middle temperature we had this year. The weather wasent too high, acidity was not degraded by strong heats.
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The 4 last days we picked the Pinot noir. The degree was surprising ... not in the better way, we were accustomed to obtain degrees higher than 10 but for the pinot, the average was rather of 9,5°. The grapes were ready, the colour of the pips was nice, and the bay of the grapes was ready to fall. 95% of our Pinot noir were nice, with an average degree quite good (9,5°), nice flowers in mouth. But last harvest was less amusing. We did not press the 5% Pinot last which in one day turned.
The grape harvest lasted 10 days, and have been lucky with a nice weather. The tasting of the juices coming out of the press were pleasant, but we always prefer to see how the wine evolves in time and passes the fermentations. The acidity and the maturity of the grapes are surprising. But that is not enough! And we wait to see how nature will make move the things! What we can see is that the acidity is high and the quality of the first juices is enthousiastic with a low level of malique acidity. All the caracteristics of a Millesime !Some pictures of the grape harvest :
The team of grape pickers in a Meunier vine.
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This year we made a very strick selection of the grapes to leave the rot on the soil.
The chardonnay cépage, ready to be pressed.
The first press is ready !
Men at work !
The washing of the cases
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