The grapes are starting to colour up

The collection point of all the drains in the various plots of my vineyard has been dry for some weeks now, since the beginning of July during my summer break. I didn’t note down the date at which it dried up in 2009, but it was in mid-August! The vines’ growth cycle is also well ahead of itself, so the fact that my pipe has dried up and the grapes have begun to change colour is logical, because at this time of year the vines need to stop growing and switch to ripening their fruit.
For that to happen, the vines need to undergo hydric stress.
What’s special about this vintage is that has already dramatically lacked water and undergone very high temperatures at the end of June, when the grapes started showing signs of being burnt. At the mid-way point in the grapes’ colour change, we are already extremely tight in terms of water.
Fortunately over the last few days, the Bordeaux area has been subject to irregular, serial rainy spells in which very varied quantities of water have fallen from place to place. For example my work colleague, who lives near La Réole on the banks of the Garonne River and whose family owns a vineyard, recorded practically 30 mm (1.2 inches) of rainfall over the last 24 hours, while at Laroze in the middle of Saint-Emilion I only saw 1 mm! I ate my heart out! The rain hasn’t finished yet: we’ve had 20 mm (3/4 inch) since the beginning of July. The temperatures are cooler, the vines can breathe again and the humid air and windy weather is good for the colour change, when the grapes turn from green to red, then dark blue. 20% of the Merlot grapes have already changed colour.
Of course, the vines absorb water through their leaves and even if the ground still remains dry deep down, the humidity in the air and the showers are enough to supply them with what they need for now.
Again, none of all this tells us anything about the quality of the vintage. I personally hope we get a lousy, rainy July, which isn’t too hot, with fine weather at the end of the summer for ripening and the harvest, but I’m not sure the weather forecaster cares about what I wish …

The water reserves in the soils

This morning the collection point, which is fed by the water from all the vineyard drains was flowing with the volume of a 20 mm pipe, whereas at the same period last year, I noted a flow equivalent to a 60 mm pipe. Last year, the flow went down to 20 mm around 25 July, which means that we are a full month’s useful water reserves short in 2011!
The frequency and volume of the rainfall in July and August will be decisive for what follows. Today the vines look well, everything appears to be normal, even if it is very early. We only observe slower growth and a slightly lighter green in the leaves than usual.

A few showers

10 June 2011: Thirty millimetres of rain fell this week between the 5th and 10th of June. This constitutes a good watering mid-term that gives the vine some respite, enabling it to continue to develop comfortably.

The Mildiou

8 June 2011: The first cases of the most important disease to affect vines in the Bordeaux area – downy mildew – only appeared on the 7th of June with the much-awaited refreshing rainfall.
This disease is basically linked to warm temperatures and humidity. The major drought conditions at the beginning of this year only delayed its appearance. As a result, we have not had to spray the vines as much, which of course is a good thing.

The last grapes:

In fact we did not start harvesting the Cabernet Franc again until 20th October, finishing them the following day including the Cabernet Sauvignon.
On the 22nd, we organised our end-of-the-harvest “Gerbaude” celebration with the 58 people, who took part over a lunch-time buffet. It was a relief and great satisfaction to have been able to wait for the grapes to ripen properly while being able to already taste some wines in the making in the tanks with the characteristic tenderness of the ripe tannins just as we like them to be.
We have a great vintage in our hands with outstanding colour, good acid levels and tannins just at the right point of ripeness. It’s up to us now to craft a truly great wine!

Cabernet franc.

We finished to pick the merlot grapes last wednesday 13th and will start to pick the cabernet franc next monday oct 18th. The last year we finished to pick the cabernet franc late was in 2008 from 14th to the 16th of october with a very good result. We had picked the cabernet sauvignon at the same date but this year we are going to wait them a bit more as long at the leaves of the vignes keep healthy (it means before automn makes them yellow of frost burns them). Don't forget that we are on an early soil and that most of our neighbours have finished the picking.
The temperatures have dropped at night down to 5°C and the maximum during the day is 17 to 20°C, so the maturation is slowed but there is plenty of light during the day with a beautiful blue sky so the vignes still work and the maturity is still progressing. The grapes are very healthy with no botrytis.

The first tank of 2010

We started picking the Merlot on 8 October and we will finish on Wednesday 13. We will see on Wednesday if we start the Cabernet Franc of if we wait a little longer. They have improved noticeably since the last rain we had. The 10 mm of rainfall this weekend will do them good.

This morning, we tasted the juice from the first tanks of Merlot, which are just starting to ferment. They are already full of colour, which is a sign the grape skins were extremely ripe and the aromas are really top quality to make a great wine. We are clearly in the range of ripe fruits. This is very promising, but the yield of fruit is low.
In the photo you can see the grapes sliding gently into the tank.

Last news before picking

27/09/2010 : The last rainfall of last thursday and friday (sept 23 and 24) gave us 13 mm of water which realease the vignes from drought at the door step from the picking. I already noticed that the last rain started to tender the skins of the berries and make them growing bigger which is a good sign. Since last friday (sept 24), the temperatures dropped down and should stay at a low level all this week with minimum T° of 5°C and maximum T° around 21°C which is about 5 degrees lower than the average. This is not going to speed the maturity of the grappes. It looks like the picking day is going to be later than expected. Some heat would help the maturity to come quicker; instead we need some more time.

2010 vintage. How is it going?

It is about time we reviewed the current vintage. It is now June and a few things have happened, so the emerging 2010 vintage can be contemplated with a certain degree of perspective.
Last winter was what I call a proper winter. It was cold like winters should be and the cold lasted right through to the end. I don’t follow rainfall from October to February, because the rain gauge breaks when it freezes, but it seems, in looking the stats that we had a normal a amount of rain.

We didn’t have any real warmth until April, when a good ten-day spell of heat kick-started vine growth. Up to then the vines still had a distinctly wintry look about them. We quickly returned to cold weather at the end of April and at the beginning of May, which was sharp and longer than usual, and really halted the growth of vegetation. We got through the period when frosts can do damage at the end of April, but only by the skin of our teeth at the full moon on the 28th. May really only started to warm up in its second fortnight, but we didn’t see growth take off as clearly and vigorously as we would like at this time of year. The vines began to flower in the last week of May at Laroze, where the ground is warm and early. The Merlot vines flowered in damp conditions which were colder than average, but the fine weather and normal temperatures finally returned the following week with a breeze just right to promote good fertilisation of the flowers. The earliest Merlot vines will doubtless display poor fruit set and “hens and chickens”. The later Merlot will be good, as should all the Cabernet, which flowered splendidly. The Merlot vines flower longer over time.
At the same time there was an early lack of water in the ground, which slowed initial growth down even more. Rainfall was significantly low in March, April and May, when it rained 30% less than the seasonal average, which is enormous. This represents a shortage of about 100 mm of rain in these three months that begin the growth cycle. One of the consequences of this is that the goodness in the organic material that was spread on the plots of vines that were lacking a little in vigour in spring, did not penetrate the soil, so the vines did not receive the boost at the time when they most needed it. As a result, growth is quite irregular in mid-June with a lot of bunches on stalks, which are sometimes a little short and with too few leaves, which will not be enough to feed all the fruit adequately. The bottom line is there are too many mouths to feed and not enough food on the vines which didn’t get enough water and warmth at the right time.
So the specific characteristics of the beginning of the 2010 vintage are a winter that lasted and spring drought, which will leave their mark in different ways depending on the different terroirs and what happens next in the ensuing seasons.
It is quite unusual to see drought setting in so early, with lawns already slightly brown and underground drain outlets showing so little flow.
The hydric stress of the vines that we hope occurs in August so that the fruit ripens well, is coming a month and a half early. This will have an impact depending on the weather that follows.
However, we don’t want the 100 mm of missing rain to fall now or lasting bad weather to set in. We hope that storms will deliver the water required at regular intervals so that the vines will be regularly fed, but without any damage from hail or flooding.
We will take what God sees fit to give us and the different terroirs’ water retention capacity will do the rest.
Whatever happens, the intelligence of the winegrower also has a role to play and we will adapt what we do in the vineyard to promote the retention of water in the soil and reduce transpiration loss by trimming lower parts of the vines and destroying the patches of grass between the rows.
I was a little taken aback a few days ago to see that some of my colleagues thought that everything was fine as the year begins. They could well receive a rude awakening later on.
Every year is different and if the conditions are identified properly and well understood by the vinegrower, he can reduce the impact on the quality of the fruit and optimise the quality of the wines produced. This is what our profession is all about and what is at the heart of the passion that drives us to live so close to Nature and work in conjunction with her.

A long, cold winter

A long, cold winter still with temperatures well below zero in the week from 7 to 13 March and morning frosts down to minus 7°C. This suits us fine, because it delays the start of growth in the vines and lessens the risk of damage from morning frosts in April. This year the April full moon falls late in the month and a last cold snap could always surprise us around the 28th, when it comes.

The hail on july 28th 2008

A quick look back on this climate calamity which devastated 30% of the vineyard. It damaged one side of the bunches and disturbed the normal maturation of a certain quantity of berries which were still intact. It was important to be able to seperate theses berries in different vats. So at the end of august, at a time where we had no certitude on the issu of this vintage except that august was cooler than usually, and the financial markets where pointing down, I decided to invest 85 000€ in the system to sort out the berries.
This system can seperate the berries which are less matured than the others by a very simple and clever density control of each berry. The result in terms of quality of work was worth the money we put in.
This hail didn't affect too much the global yield but forced us to declassify 15% of the wine produced in basic Saint-Emilion instead of Grand Cru Classé.
So the 4100 litres of wine produced by hectare gave only 2800 litres of Grand Cru Classé.
This decision saved the quality of Laroze 2008 and will improve it in the future vintages.

In fact, this decision which I basically had no choice about, once the weather had done its damage, and which forced me to take out a loan in the middle of violent stock market turbulence, had a positive impact on the quality of the harvest, not only because it totally erased the effects of the hailstorm, but also by refining our wine’s taste profile.
I expect this enhancement in quality to be confirmed in future vintages.
So the moral is, if you believe in the quality potential of your terroir, and your fundamental guideline is that every bottle of Laroze must be quite simply delicious, you take the right decisions even in a hostile economic context!
And that’s why I have a bone to pick with the cork suppliers, the majority of whom are incapable of doing what is necessary – but that’s another story, so see the article below.

How do we explain to our customers that 2008 is superb despite a cool summer?

The first fortnight in July was fine and hot at a time when the grapes were in full growth. This made the skins grow thicker to protect the fruit against the heat. This first development helped the grapes fend off outside attacks during the long final ripening period, while also producing a large quantity of tannins and colour.

The second factor was the long exceptional Indian summer, which made it possible for us to lengthen the growth cycle by a further 16 days. Instead of harvesting 45 days after the mid-point of the colour-change heralding the onset of ripening (véraison), we waited for 60 days. The bunches of fruit were clean and disease-free, which is truly extraordinary.

This longer period in no way replaced the heat, we did not get in August, but it allowed the tannins to ripen slowly. What was quite unusual was that this slow ripening process was able to take place without any excessive heat burning the tannins and changing their aromas. The outcome was tannins that were especially mild immediately after alcoholic fermentation had finished and an early impression that they had already begun to meld with the wine. The aromas are very fresh, very noticeable and very intense.

This vintage has it all. It has everything going for it and everything is in its rightful place.2008 is better than 2006, because it is richer and it is the best wine we have made since 2005.When I talk about this vintage, I usually say that it’s a Great Vintage that came in quietly by the back door, without anybody hearing …

We thank Mother Nature for surprising us again in such a splendid way.

THE 2008 WINEGROWING YEAR AND HARVEST

2008 featured a fine summer that followed a wet spring. It was back to usual weather patterns after an atypical 2007. The vegetation began growing relatively slowly in the cool, damp conditions making this year no earlier than average. However every year has its own excesses and 2008 brought abundant rain in May and June, practically three times the average for May.This wet weather at flowering time led to poor fruit set then ‘hens and chickens’, which significantly affected the potential of the harvest.July was dry with three consecutive weeks without rain and became hot in the second week with temperatures higher than 30°C and cool nights of around 15°C. The strength of this vintage is that the grapes took on size in bright light and with a lot of heat, so the skins are thick and rich in tannin. There was a lot of water in the ground, so the vines were well irrigated. Only the young vines showed signs of ‘thirst’ before 15 mm of rain fell on 28 July unfortunately in the form of a violent storm with large hailstones. Quite marked damage appeared irregularly across the various plots with fruit losses ranging between 5 and 30%. The very hot weather in August helped to heal the wounds. By 6 August, groundwater reserves had diminished considerably, highlighted by mid-August by a situation of hydric stress that set in for the benefit of fruit quality. The initial colour change heralding the onset of ripening became apparent on 30 July, reaching its mid-point at around the middle of August in the Merlots.The first three weeks in August were lacking in overall warmth with cool nights of 11°C and residual humidity with the result that the estate gardens remained green all summer. This significantly slowed down the onset of ripening, which was very spread out in the Merlots, taking a full month. Only in the last week of August did we return to real summer heat. Rainfall in August turned out to be average for the season. The hail damage on the grapes stopped them from turning colour. They remained hard and round and will doubtlessly go into the lowest quality fruit. This led us to make an unplanned investment and change our grape sorting machine acquired in 2002. We replaced it with the more recent model, which can also be used to sort the round grapes according to density and thus isolate the least ripe fruit that had been hit by the hail. This was also a good time to change the machine, which had an exchange value of €18,000. We spent an extra €85,000 on the quality of our 2008 vintage, which is decidedly a lot, especially since we will be expected to bring our sales prices down. However, it was the only solution this year to make a great wine at Laroze after the hail. So this is money well spent to ensure the quality of our brand.At the beginning of September, the skies covered over and temperatures did not go over 26°C. We removed leaves on the second side of the vines facing south and west. We also removed small sections of bunches that were late in changing colour and would never be ripe for the harvest.The first fortnight in September had regular, average rainfall that maintained ongoing humidity and cool temperatures, which did nothing to speed up ripening. By 15 September, we calculated that we would need three more weeks for the fruit to ripen adequately. The full moon in mid-September brought us an anticyclone with higher temperatures around 25°C and fine weather. We took advantage of this to lime the fruit and dry all those skins that had been damaged by the hail and had been dampened again. We needed more warmth to burn off the acids in the grapes and make them ripen.The anticyclone set in for the duration and the Merlots finally ripened. We picked a few on Thursday 9 October, then left them for the beautiful weekend on 11th and 12th which contributed significantly to quality. This was the point at which the grapes tipped over and became perfectly ripe. They remained clean and disease-free, and we harvested all the Merlots and Cabernets between 13 and 20 October. There was no need to wait any longer; now we had to work fast, because the grapes were ripe.We harvested in the Indian summer, enjoying fine weather and temperatures up to 23°C on certain days.However, on Sunday 19 it froze in the morning!This was the first year that we harvested when the Autumn colours had arrived, which gave us a powerful shot of nostalgia.The Cabernets Francs were as sweet as a treat and their tannin had lost all astringency. Who would have thought it possible back in the middle of September?This difficult year ended on a note of Nature’s generosity as if She wanted to beg forgiveness by giving us an exceptional autumn.The sorting machine with the density facility did a fantastic job ruling out all the grapes that were not sufficiently ripe. It was the right investment to make this year; compared to a uniformly ripe vintage, the machine will give us, I think, that little extra that could make the difference.The grapes are fermenting at the moment and it is still early to talk of the wine.The tannins are ripe and since more sun is required to ripen tannins than to make sugars, the content of the latter ranges from 12.8 to 13.8°.Yields are low, around 30 hectolitres per hectare of the top quality must.

2008 so far

A gorgeous Summer with a wet Spring before it.We are back to normal weather patterns compared to 2007. Growth started slowly in cool, wet conditions, so the year was not early in that respect.

Since every year something has to be excessive, 2008 had abundant rain in May and June, almost three times the average quantity for May. July was dry with three consecutive weeks without rain and the warmth arrived in the second week with daytime temperatures in the thirties, while temperatures remained cool at night around 15°C.

The positive point about this vintage is that the grapes got bigger in July, stimulated by all the light and heat, which I hope will bring us thick fruit skins, full of tannin. Water reserves in the ground were high, so the vines found all they needed, with only the young vines showing signs of “thirst”, before 15 mm of rain fell on 28 July, unfortunately during a bad storm, which also brought large hailstones. Quite marked damage appeared irregularly in the different plots with losses of between 5 and 30% of the harvest. The hot weather at the beginning of August healed the wounds.

By 6 August ground water reserves had diminished significantly and we are hoping to see hydric stress setting in by mid-August, which will be good for grape quality. The grapes started to change colour on 30 July and the mid-point should occur around 10 or 12 August amongst the Merlots.

Flowering

Flowering started a week late at the end of May and beginning of June. It was fast, uniform and took place at the same time for all varieties. With the new moon on Tuesday 3 June, we were expecting the fine weather to settle in and the return of the anticyclone was announced, but it is dragging its feet and the storms and showers are still prevalent!

Despite this, flowering of the vines continues and we will have a better idea, two to three weeks from now, of the potential harvest this vintage will have, depending on how well the flowers are fertilised.

Weather report

Spring is being strongly influenced by ocean weather systems with patterns of westerly winds and alternating rainy and warm periods.
As soon as the fine weather arrives, temperatures go up and it gets stormy in the evenings.
May was tropical, like we rarely experience it here with exceptionally high rainfall of 200 mm (20 litres per sq. m) compared to the ten-year average of 70 mm. This is ideal weather for growing bananas and is also very favourable for vine diseases such as mildew.
It took nobody by surprise this year, being so early and the risk was obvious for everyone.

We experienced what felt to me like a real winter this year, which lasted a proper length of time with cold weather and rain.
February was dry and the budburst was delayed by about a week. Just one really warm week was enough to kick-start the vines, then it got colder again. The traditional “giboulées” windy sleet showers in March came as usual and the frost on 7 April, when temperatures went down to -2°C, was fortunately isolated and had no impact at Laroze.

The end of the Spring frosts?

- The weather forecast has announced the arrival of Spring as of next Wednesday.
Frost:
The risk of Spring frosts is now over, I think, because the full moon is behind us. During the night of Sunday 6th to Monday 7th, we came very close to frost when temperatures reached minus 2°C. Some areas around Bordeaux were affected more than others, but not enough to say outright that Bordeaux was hit by frost.
This explains why in our region we have very little equipment to combat frost, because it is such a rare occurrence – the last serious case was in 1991 – and it does represent such a heavy capital investment.
Some systems such as positioning flares throughout the vineyard are less expensive, but very polluting, because of the heavy smoke they produce. I did not see any this year.