"Saturday the 25/09
It is now three days since the harvest started under a beautiful rising sun and a fairly high temperature for the season. We started with our vines in Cotes du Rhone which will give birth to our small production of Côtes du Rhône "No Wine's Land" very ripe with a nice acidity which should give a good balance to the final wine, generally seductive and elegant.
We followed with the bottom slopes vineyards of Cornas in the "Lieux dits Genale, Mazards and Patronne. We found some spots of "vers de la grappe” - Grape worm that we had to sort rigorously. The harvest seems very promising yet we will have a better idea in a few weeks of the precise level of quality after the first fermentations.
We have improved our system this year with the use now a conveyor belt-elevator to feed the vats by gravity. This is very satisfying for us as it increases the amount of full berries in the vat to enhance the fruit aromas in our wines. The potential alcoholic degrees are quite high as we reach 13,5% approximately which is higher than our average of 13%.
Despite a few problems of equipment badly repaired before harvest by our suppliers which made us loose time and energy, we can say that all is going well for the moment!
We had to stop cutting today as we have a small rain of 10mm which forced us to stop. It shouldn't be a problem for the rest of the harvest regarding the small amount of water we had.
The first juices in vat have a superb and dark color which confirms the high phenolic maturities. We have done no intervention on our vats for the moment to able the intra-cellular fermentation to happen so to gain fruit and elegance and bring this very delicate wine texture that I seek and love over all for the fluidity it confers.
I will be in touch with more news, photos and facts from the harvest 2010 at Domaine du Coulet.
All the best,
Matthieu Barret, Domaine du Coulet"
