Harvest Report - The Capricious Climate of 2014

... It's that time of year again! If you were wondering how we got on this harvest, read on....

Harvest 2014, in an Acorn Shell: fragrant fruit but low yields overall, and slim-pickin’ of Syrah  

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As usual, the altitude of the domaine played a big part in affecting our harvest, this year not really in our favor. The heavy rainfall around Montpellier, that made headlines, hit us hard and bloated much of our Syrah, bringing down its signature concentration in places, but, fortunately the Grenache and Whites were spared and are fragrant and succulent. This year's was smallish, with overall quantities down, on average, 20%. Jean-Louis is pleasantly surprised with how the juices are tasting now that vinification is underway: we’re expecting this year’s small vintage to show good complexity with nice, taut structure, and some desirable freshness, and nice velvety texture after all.

The Whole Chê-bang: A challenging year in the vineyard

Winter was mild, with fewer frosts than we normally come into contact with, even at our pronounced altitude.  This triggered an alarming rise in the number of nasty, vine-chomping Asian Flies in the region, requiring special vigilance, especially for natural practices. Spring bounced erratically between high temperatures, and cooler rainy weather:  all over the Rhône and Provence, April was unseasonably cold and unpleasant.  May started off cool & windy, followed by sudden intense heat – leading our somewhat confused vines to take advantage of the water and warmth and grow over-vigorous young shoots, and forcing us to get all hands on deck to rein them in: if the vines concentrate too much on ‘growing’, then their resources are distracted from ripening the berries. The Grenache was especially vigorous, and then got pretty hard-hit by coulure.  Benedicte and her team were in red-alert, but rose to the challenge.

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The summer was also mixed: July and August were sultry and stormy.  We got our hopes up with a warm and sunny start to September but then we experienced heavy rainfall up to the equinox.  Harvest started on Sept 29th, a few days later than usual, but after only two days rain forced us to stop.  This was quite damaging to our Syrah, as alcohol levels dropped in parts to 11.5% potential alcohol. This meant we had to be particularly meticulous in our berry-sorting to make sure that only truly ripe and concentrated berries made it into the selection; we had to chuck a lot of them and in the end, only about 25% of what we picked will make the cut for our top wines. Some of them, however, will go into our rosé, which will benefit from their crisp acidity.

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Then 'They' announced more rain and no Mistral, so we sped up to avoid more damage and the onset of mildew, but luckily it never materialised:  we completed the rest of harvest by 15th October under sunny, dry conditions.  Other vineyards at lower altitudes had already finished their harvest so they were spared all the fuss.

Overall, the red grapes are high in color, and the whites are rich and aromatic. Even if yields are also on the low side for our Grenache, the grapes are healthy, with good signs of their usual concentration of fruit and slightly higher levels of acidity, which will condition our barrel work.

Over and out for now, friends!

Nicole