The growing season is in full swing here in Burgundy. For the most part we have enjoyed a beautiful summer with extremely dry and warm weather. We had the occasional shower here and there but for almost four months up until July we saw virtually no rain! This was wonderful for the vines and the grapes. The result has been a season with little to no disease presence. Unfortunately, at the end of June the region was hit with a violent hail storm in virtually the same place as last year… unbelievable. Vines from Beaune to Meursault incurred the most damage with the rest of the Côte de Beaune and Côte de Nuits being less harmed. Our grapes from Pommard were severely impacted and we’re still unsure to whether that contract will work out for the 2014 vintage – very sad.
The unfortunate string of bad luck and the devastating hail storms has region has endured over the last 3 years is unprecedented. Everyone does what they can to go on. We try to remain positive, however, we are now not sure of some of our contracts. Nevertheless we are optimistic about the rest of the growing season and the quality of the grapes thus far. In fact we noticed this week some of our pinot noir grapes have just begun veraison. This is when the grapes begin to ripen and change from a bright green to deep purple. They will continue to develop in maturity over the next two months and we’ll keep a close eye on them until harvest, measuring sugar and acidity levels so that we know when to best harvest.
July has been cooler and damper than the previous months. The vines are finally getting some much needed rain. The dry conditions throughout spring and early summer have slowed down the development of the vines and thus have pushed back the harvest to a normal time, currently estimated around Mid-September.
As some of you might know we just sent out our pre-sales offer for wines from our first vintage, 2013. This limited time offer gives people the opportunity to purchase our wines directly from us at an advantageous price and will ensure an allocation when it comes time to bottling. We are so excited with the positive response we have gotten thus far and are thrilled to be processing orders! If you have not received the offer please join our list, so that we can send it out to you before it ends next week.
The 2013 wines are doing great. The reds have all finished their secondary fermentation (malolactic) and are set to age for another few months before we bottle in late winter.So far we are extremely pleased with the wines, each unique in character reflect the true nature of their terroir. The whites are tasting beautiful now. They are fresh, vibrant and each distinctly different with our Chassagne-Montrachet 1er Cru ‘En Remilly’ showcasing more tropical fruit notes and our Chassagne-Montrachet 1er Cru ‘En Cailleret’ more minerality and structure. The reds while still young and delicate are very promising. The Gevrey-Chambertin “La Justice” is filled with aromas of juicy red fruits while the Gevrey-Chambertin 1er Cru ‘Combe au Moine’ is a little deeper and layered with complexity. The Pommard 1er Cru ‘Les Chanlins’ is a true Pommard full of power and richness! Finally the Vosne-Romanée ‘Champs Perdrix’ blows us away each time we taste, earthy, rich with ripe cherry’s – simply gorgeous.
With the 13’s resting we have started to make room for the new vintage and set up the second barrel cellar just adjacent to the one we currently are using. This second cellar will allow us to keep the Chardonnays and Pinot Noirs in different cellars. The benefit to this is that it will allow us to keep temperatures different in each cellar as well as giving us some additional space.
We have also start thinking about which type of bottles we will use, the corks and our label – all very exciting. Who knew picking out a bottle could be so difficult… all have different shapes, necks and weights, yet look so similar. All these final decisions will need to be made in the next few months so stay tuned for updates on that! It will be surreal to see our wines finally in bottle come next year – that will certainly merit another celebration!
That’s all the news for now. We’ll keep you posted as things progress towards the harvest. Until then we hope your enjoy a glass of something fabulous in the sun somewhere! Cheers.