2012

Bad luck befell Burgundy, just as it did Egypt in the Old Testament. To remind us that wine is above all ‘the fruit of the earth and the labour of men’, the heavens fell upon us in 2012!

Yet the mild weather until January had us fearing a winter without cold. The temperatures in February (down to -10°C for over a week) brought us back to reality, with some consequences. This winter frost was particularly felt on the fragile plots of young vines (GRAVIERES BLANC, LADOIX BLANC and BOURGOGNE BLANC) and on the lower part of the CLOS des CORNIERES.

The return of warm, sunny weather in March led the vegetation to believe that summer had arrived! When we left to visit our son in CHINA on 3 April, the cherry trees were in bloom and the vines were already sprouting green buds. But when we returned on 17 April, we could only note the spring frost that had occurred during the night of 16/17 April. It was particularly devastating. All our vines were affected except for our POMMARD plot, which always buds later.
We began debudding on 7 May.

Hail fell on SANTENAY in April (without consequence), then in June (Marjorie's birthday) and July, violent storms accompanied by hail struck our estate. On 1 August, hail struck CHASSAGNE MONTRACHET and PULIGNY MONTRACHET for the third time on our BOURGOGNE ALIGOTE plot. At this time of year, hailstones damage the green grapes and attack the vine wood.

Coulure(1) and Millerandage(2): the transition from flower to fruit in June took place in very poor conditions, with rain and cold weather, which led to coulure and millerandage across all our plots, with more significant damage in ALOXE CORTON and LADOIX.

Mildew(3) and Odïum(4): The vines, weakened by frost and hail, were under severe pressure from mildew and powdery mildew. The contact products, based on sulphur and copper, which we use against these diseases in our organic cultivation, could not always be applied in time to all our plots, especially those at the bottom of the slopes, which are less well drained. As a result, we lost our entire BOURGOGNE PINOT NOIR harvest at the bottom of SANTENAY.

Work is progressing well, but the vats are not filling up because the grapes are small, with only a few berries per bunch. At the end of the first day, we realised that the harvest would be very small. But as the days went by, it became clear that this small harvest would be of very high quality: the grapes are healthy, with a good balance of sugar and acidity. The tannins require a little work to extract, but they are silky and stabilise the colouring agents.

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