2013

It has been a long time since we started harvesting in October!

After the snow in February and a very wet March, we just have time to plough between the vines in early April before the rain and cold return until mid-June. During this period, minimum temperatures are 5/6°C and maximum temperatures are 15/16°C, while total rainfall is 1.5 times the average for the last ten years.

With such weather conditions, bud break in the vineyard is almost 30 days late and debudding, usually around 2/3 May, begins on 13 May. Flowering is observed on average on the estate around 25 June. This is a further 10 days' delay that the mild weather in July and August will not allow us to make up. Difficult flowering on Chardonnay has led to significant millerandage. Mechanical treatments of the vines against MILDEW and POWDERY MILDEW are made more complicated by the very heavy condition of the soil. In our BOURGOGNE PINOT NOIR plots at the bottom of the hillsides, we had to call in a helicopter to carry out the necessary treatments and avoid the crop losses suffered last year due to the development of MILDEW on the bunches.

On the evening of 23 July, a terrible hailstorm damaged around 40% of the vineyards in the Côte de Beaune. Sixty per cent of our two Aloxe Corton plots were affected, while our Aloxe Corton Premier Cru ‘Les Petites Lolières’ was spared. Santenay and Chassagne Montrachet were not affected by the storm, but further north, we suffered some hail damage in Meursault and Pommard. We estimate losses at around 10% in Pommard and 25% in Meursault.

But let's remain optimistic! 80% of the estate's vines were not affected by hail, and the summer remains one of the driest and sunniest of the decade, allowing us to forget the particularly gloomy and rainy spring. This favourable weather will not make up for the delay in vegetation growth, but the grapes will have no trouble reaching a good level of ripeness, with small, well-aerated bunches hanging from vines with low yields.

Friday, 13 September: strong mobilisation of Santenois winegrowers for a large-scale survey of the vineyards to detect cases of Golden Flavescence. This disease is a particularly contagious form of grapvine yellows caused by a microorganism that circulates in the sap.

The disease is transmitted by an insect vector, the Golden Flavescence Leafhopper, which acquires the phytoplasma when feeding on an infected plant and transmits it to other plants in the same way.

With very little known about grapevine yellows, the only method of control is to eradicate the vector (golden flavescence leafhopper) using insecticide. This practice is mandatory in our department under a Prefectural Order.

The organic producer then feels trapped. He feels like they are using a bulldozer to crush a fly!!!

In response to the urgency and administrative requirements, we complied by using a non-toxic organic insecticide for typhlodromes, which we apply in July. Faced with what could be called ‘vine AIDS’, we must nevertheless question the consequences of mandatory control measures on the health of vineyard workers and surrounding populations, on the environment and beneficial fauna, and also on the image of Burgundy wines.

The harvest begins on Wednesday 2 October with the Chardonnay grapes from CHASSAGNE MONTRACHET. The stormy weather that has settled over the region since the beginning of the week is not very good for white grapes, which are ripening rapidly (the beautiful golden yellow colour of ripe Chardonnay grapes is turning brown at an impressive rate!). It is urgent that we harvest all our white grape plots as quickly as possible before rot sets in, which would deprive us of a very fine harvest. In our SANTENAY 1er CRU GRAVIERES plot, I even saw the grapes on the next vine fall off by themselves while I was harvesting the previous vine!

Around fifty people (including permanent staff) worked hard for ten days in all weathers. 2013 was no picnic, with rain and cold weather making it impossible to use the secateurs on the last morning. Now that the harvest is over, everyone is exhausted. Wine, the fruit of the earth and human labour, was born in pain this year.

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