The Mosel - Fritz Haag's harvest is about to begin.

The grape harvest is now imminent.

The weather in September was very nice and a lot of sunlight made the grapes ripen perfectly.

Small berries, golden yellow coloured, promise to give an excellent vintage. Due to the rainfall during the last days, we have decided to start harvesting this weekend and are pretty excited how the wine will turn out.

Patrick Javillier gives us his thoughs on Meursault 2009

News from Meursault and it seems they too have harvested a very fine set of wines in 2009. Here's what Patrick Javillier had to say about the vintage:

"The weather conditions in spring and early summer were favorable to the occurrence of oidium and downy mildiou. Because of this we have had to be very vigilant in administering any interventions. Fortunately our vigilance paid off and we have harvested a very healthy set of grapes.

The summer has seen very hot days alternated with cooler days. A few periodical thunderstorms and cool nights have allowed the grapes to reach maturity with superb balance. The vines did not suffer from drought, even with the hot days, for every one to two weeks we have had stormy rains that have washed down the soil. The cool nights have allowed the crop to preserve it's fresh aromas.

The 2009 vintage wines in red and white harvested at 95 - 100 days to flower, should be free from over-maturity and should have a balance of sugar and acidity with remarkably fresh and elegant flavours .

The tasting in a few months should confirm that these rare qualities are present."

Pomerol 2009 - Harvest complete

We have now finished the harvest and are astonished with the quality of the vintage.It has been a very long harvest, in two periods:

- The first one for the younger vines and gravelly soils of Pomerol before the rain of September 19th and 20th;

- The second, from September 25th until October 6th for the older vines and clayey soils in Pomerol, and the Merlot of Saint-Emilion, followed by the Cabernet Franc from both appellations to end.

Some tanks have already been drained and pressed, and we are finding extremely complex wines with a creamness that could be a typicity of the vintage.

Despite the high level of alcohol, there is a freshness, giving great balance in the wines, held tight together by a certain structure of ripe and round tannins.

The only disappointment is the small yield. We were expecting more wine, but the warm and sunny early fall along with dry winds concentrated the berries.

I can clearly say that it is the most amazing quality I have seen so far, and some people in our team who have been around for much longer than I have claim the same thing.... Il semblerait que nous soyons en face d'un très grand vin de garde!

Vosne-Romanée 2009 - "A beautiful crop"

The 2009s have finally been pressed, we are starting to rack off the wines and put them into barrel. What a healthy and beautiful crop of wines we have just made! Exceptional maturity has allowed for very agreeable vinifications that were simple in the extreme! The goal was to make the best of the great grape maturity we had without extracting too much, to obtain that real velvety character of our wines and to retain their drinkability. They will now be in their barrels for between 13 to 18 months, depending on their evolution during elevage. We can now take a short breath before starting to think of racking the 2008s, with a view to bottling them in the coming months. Its also necessary to get back into the vines, to start preparing for the 2010 vintage!

Frenzy for 2006 Italians

Yesterday saw the release of the eagerly anticipated Masseto 2006, the `Petrus of Tuscany`. The flagship wine from Tenuta Dell Ornellaia clearly made the most of the wonderful conditions in 2006 and merited a whopping 99 points from Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate.
Next to come will be the equally hotly anticipated Gaja 2006s. This magnificent vintage has produced great wines throughout Italy and Gaja’s Barbarescos are no exception. Keep your eyes peeled and be swift to avoid disappointment.

La Tour du Rhône - Day 5

Friday 2nd October - Condrieu, St Joseph and 2008 Vintage summary

Andre Perret could be domaine of the week, having produced the most impressive and consistent range of 2008s we have tasted. Few are simultaneously adept at red and white winemaking, Andre (pictured) achieves both with aplomb. The whites are superb - as racy as 2002 but with greater ripeness, none of the whites were chaptalised, both Clos Chanson and Coteau de Chery rival the Chave and Colombier whites for wine of the vintage. Grisieres will not be bottled separately this year so the regular St Joseph red cuvee has benefited enormously from its old vines, a ripe refreshing and perfectly proportioned wine with complexity of flavour.
Francois Villard makes wines in a totally different style to Perret, they are later picked and richer. His two stand out whites were the Grand Vallon and the Deponcins Condrieus, less expressive than Perret's, but full-bodied and very intense. The Vins de Pays Contours de Deponcins, was also very impressive and could look excellent value. As for the reds, Francois has been extracting less and reigning back on the new oak the last few years to great success. The two very fine, elegant Cote Roties, Gallet Blanc and Brocarde, were the pick of the reds here.

Its been a less exhausting week than anticipated, which is always a good sign. Following a great vintage is never easy and with challenging conditions in the summer of 2008, the vintage will no doubt have its detractors. This is not a homogenous year when just any old producer could have made good wine nor is its a big rich "trophy" vintage, however the important point is that there are enough good wines that will give plenty of drinking pleasure, from the serious producers. The reds will drink relatively early but the best will certainly last well into the mid term (5-7 yrs.) Less rain fell in the south than the north during the summer and, bar the northern sector of Chateauneuf where there was a hailstorm in September, the wines are a shade more consistent, however the top wines undeniably come from the granite slopes of Cornas and specific parts of the Hermitage hill. The whites are of excellent quality, particularly those of the northern rhone.

Alongside the 2008s we tasted the 2007s in bottle. I was delighted to find that these were every bit as impressive as from barrel, my tastings reconfirmed that this is a truely great, must-have, Rhone vintage.