Burgundy 2010 - An update from Domaine Grivot

Following what could be called a genuine winter with frost and rain and especially the night of 19th December with a temperature of -20 degree Celsius; not only did many vines perish but the same fate befell a large number of fruit-bearing buds.

Growth started at the usual time and was consistent thanks to summer temperatures in late April. But 2010 was one of the rainiest years ever recorded during the vines’ growing period.
During the summer, the weather was very cool and vines and fruits growth up normal. These conditions played a predominant role in ensuring that the vines remained healthy.

At Domaine Grivot, we took the decision to use only organic products for vines in 2010 and we are very happy; for the first time, we saw how the plant was able to cope with all of these weather challenges without external assistance. The foliage stayed a glorious deep green, the skin of the fruit had incredible thickness and all the different elements ripened in perfect harmony. Very good news for the future!

We started grape-picking on 23th September in cool weather with a light northerly wind. We record 40% less production compared to a normal year. However, given the weather experienced during the vintage, this also explains the marvellous quality of the harvest. The vintage is promising.

The wines produced are superbly balanced, in the spirit of the 2000 vintage but with greater density. Colours are dense and luminous. A generous palate with an incredibly delicate finish. Tannins are silky and sophisticated. Without any doubt a great success and a tribute to all the hard work in the vineyards over the last few years.

I have a liking for the Nuits-Saint-Georges appellations this year. They are superb and have a great elegance, freshness, harmony, fineness and structure.

Concerning the 2011 vintage? Very early to ask about it!

But the high temperature, at the beginning of spring, gives the premonition of a precocious vintage. The vines are crazy!!
The third week of April, we recorded, in Vosne-Romanee, 22 days earlier than 2009…
At the middle of May, flowering was blooming. Just one week was required to pass this stage.

If we count like the ancients, one hundred days, we should harvest around of the 20th August in Vosne-Romanee and Nuits-Saint-Georges.
Hopefully the weather will be cool this summer.

Voyager Estate - The Final Harvest Update April 2011

The final instalment of Voyager Estate’s harvest report.

"Similar to last year - we had just finished tipping our last bin of Cabernet Sauvignon into the de-stemmer and the rain started to fall. The harvest which commenced on the 9th of Feb and concluded on the 6th of April will be remembered for the warm and humid February and the perfect March weather which finished the reds off beautifully.

It was a season where patience was rewarded, as it was important to wait for the Cabernet Sauvignon and give it some hang time to ensure the tannins were fully ripe. Those who waited will make outstanding wines, with great concentration and fine, ripe, silky tannins.

The condition of the vine canopies at harvest was the best I have ever seen, with no sign of yellow leaves due to some timely midsummer rain. However, the fruit still showed evidence of the dry growing season, with small, deeply coloured berries and thick skins. Consequently the yields were quite low and came in just under our targeted range at around one and a half tonnes per acre.

The excellent quality of the grapes will see the fruit from most of our best vineyards spend a couple of weeks left on skins after fermentation which contributes great complexity and tannin structure to the wine.
Most of the Shiraz vineyards have completed fermentation and are looking fantastic with rich dark and red berry fruit and fine, complex layered tannins.

We have just started blending our Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon which looks great and the Chardonnay is potentially exceptional. The consistency of this region never ceases to amaze me and it really does fit the description as a "viticulturist’s paradise".

Cheers, Steve James"

Video interview: Chris Howell from Cain Cellars

Chris Howell was in town recently and came to see us in St James’s Street. He is one of Napa’s most thoughtful men, producing some of Napa’s most elegant wines, and what he has to say is invariably fascinating.

Voyager Estate - Harvest News March 2011

“This week has seen the completion of the Shiraz and Merlot fruit into the winery. The yields have been spot on our targets for these varieties at close to 2 tonnes per acre, and the fruit looks excellent with great colour and concentration.

The first picks of Cabernet Sauvignon have started to come in, and the early signs look very promising. The first Cabernet fruit we harvest is off a small block in the Wilyabrup sub region of Margaret River, which is located about 25 Kms north of our estate. It is slightly warmer and provides us with an exceptional batch of fruit we use in our Cabernet Sauvignon Merlot wine. The top fruit from this sub region is always characterised with lovely fresh Mulberry fruit and fine silky tannins whereas the fruit from our top Estate vineyard blocks displays dark cassis fruit with more structural tannins. The small portion of this Wilyabrup fruit adds some mid palate sweetness to the wine and is an important component of our style.

Next week is looking very busy with most of the Estate Cabernet being harvested. The weather is holding up beautifully with warm days and cool nights which are perfect for fully ripening the tannins and concentrating the flavours.

Cheers, Steve James”

Video: Teso La Monja - Otherworldly Tinta de Toro

Eduardo Eguren tells us about the new Eguren venture in Toro, Teso La Monja. Old vines, often ungrafted, planted at elevation: the wines are magical, super elegant examples of Tinta da Toro. As Eduardo says, they might be the same variety as found in Rioja, but they drink as if from another world.

Voyager Estate - Harvest News March 2011 (V)

Part five of Steve James’ Harvest Update as we follow the progress at Voyager Estate. The Shiraz is in, which leaves just Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Petit Verdot to be harvested...

"The warm tropical weather has finally subsided and we are now enjoying classic Margaret River autumn weather, comprising beautiful warm, sunny days with cool nights. Perfect conditions for finishing off the red grapes which we started harvesting on Tuesday 8th March. Most of the Shiraz has been harvested and is showing amazing depth of colour with great concentration of ripe fruit flavours and excellent tannin structure. Due to the kind weather conditions, we have been selectively harvesting small batches on most days, and will complete the Shiraz early next week.

The Merlot is nearly ready, and we expect to commence harvesting this early next week with the Cabernet Sauvignon not long after. Our final red grape harvested is Petit Verdot which we love to blend into our Cabernet Sauvignon Merlot for its violet like aromatics and structural contribution to the palate. The weather forecast for the next week or so is very good, so we will continue selective harvesting of small batches which enables us to harvest each small patch at optimum ripeness. The Chardonnay has nearly finished fermentation in barrel, and a tasting late last week showed our early excitement to be well justified. Hopefully the weather will hold out for another couple of weeks to give the Cabernet Sauvignon a bit more hang time to complete another outstanding vintage for the region.

Cheers, Steve James."

Voyager Estate - Harvest News March 2011 (IV)

Steve James making us feel as if we are walking along the vineyards with him, soaking in the sun and witnessing the last of the white grapes.

"It has been a busy week with all of our Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon harvested, which basically sees the end of the whites except for a small parcel of Viognier to be harvested with our early picks of Shiraz and co-fermented. The season has delivered excellent flavours for the Sauvignon Blanc Semillon blend with a very good palate weight and fruit intensity. The latter harvested batches of Semillon contribute a nice textural component to the wine.

Around 20% of the Semillon portion of this wine is being put to barrel for fermentation, with the aim of building more textural notes and complexity into the wine but without obvious wood character.

The reds are ripening quickly and we are currently spending a lot of time in the field chewing seeds and grape skins - waiting for the optimum tannin ripeness so we can begin the red grape harvest. It looks like we will commence the Shiraz early next week - they are very close but just need a few more days to finish off.

The weather is still warm and dry with slightly cooler conditions forecast for the weekend, which will be a pleasant relief for the vignerons and vines.

Cheers, Steve James."

Voyager Estate - Harvest News Feb 2011 (II)

"Wednesday 16th February 2011

Our Chardonnay harvest commenced on the 9th February which is the second earliest start to harvest we have experienced. The earliest was 2007 which commenced one day earlier!. Interestingly the seasons are still quite different, with the current season being early due to a very warm and dry spring with mild to warm ripening conditions, as opposed to 2007 which was early due to a hot summer and autumn.

We have been hand harvesting every day and our final Chardonnay pick is scheduled for Saturday 19th Feb. Chardonnay is all hand harvested on our vineyard as we do not crush the fruit but use whole bunch pressing, which assists with the finer more elegant style of Chardonnay we make.

The conditions have been perfect with warm weather albeit slightly more humid than the last few seasons. The fruit is being harvested in excellent condition with very good fruit weight and concentration in the lemon, grapefruit and dried pear flavours we look for with fine natural acidity. The quality of the Chardonnay appears exceptional across all blocks.

The first of the Sauvignon Blanc will be coming off on Thursday evening. The fruit for this wine is machine harvested in the cool of night which helps to preserve the aromatics and fresh vibrant fruit flavours we look for with this style of wine. The flavours have just started to kick in and are showing the signs of fresh tropical fruits with just a hint of herbaceousness. The flavour profile window for this variety is very narrow and combined with the warm ,perfect ripening conditions, I suspect it will be a busy week.

Our vintage team have settled in well and we have representation from France and South Africa this year, so it has been great to compare notes with winemakers from other regions around the world.

Cheers,

Steve James."

Picking in Piedmont - Harvest is over!

GAME OVER GAME OVER GAME OVER !!!

Yes, we are finally done, we can start breathing again, we are all tired but happy.

We finised picking on Wednesday, it has been a long month. Non stop, no days off, 15-20 hours of work per day, but I can finally say, now that it’s all safe in the cellar, that 2010 will be a GREAT VINTAGE for Piemonte.

So cheer up everyone, excellent results for all the grapes, Dolcetto, Barbera and Nebbiolo, and of course Barolo.

The few rain showers that we had didn’t effect the vineyards nor the quality of the grapes, and even if at the end we were literally running, because we were afraid of mould and infections, we still harvested very good quality grapes.

There are a few more weeks of work in the cellar ahead, pressing, racking, putting the wine into barrels, preparing for malolactic, everything now seems quick and easy, as we no longer need to rush in the vineyards anymore.

All the wines are turning dry easily; becasue we just use our indigenous yeast sometimes the wines tend to remain sweet, but it’s not the case of this year, almost everything is dry now.

This harvest has been an other great experience for all of us, to work close with a very good team makes life much easier, we all worked hard, we were all tired at night and but smiley in the morning...and now we all look forward to the big “harvest crew” dinner that Elio always offers us, and we always make sure he picks the fanciest restaurant in the area, the biggest menu and the nicest wines :-)

See you next year!!

Silvia

Cornas news - Harvest complete.

A further installment from the delightful Matthieu Barret at Domaine du Coulet. It would seem, with the exception of the painfully low yields this year, things are looking good in 2010...

"Hello all,

I was not able to write to you as regularly as I wanted to keep you informed about the harvest in 2010.

We have been cutting grapes for the last three weeks with a small team of 10 people. The harvest is healthy and ripe and over the third week we collected grapes with a very big phenolic maturity. This last week, we harvested the summit of our mountain (which is the base of Billes Noires) and the East hillsides (which is one of the bases of Terrasses du Serre).

I ‘ve decided not to make any “Gore” cuvee but a “big” Billes Noires

in 2010 which will be, in my opinion, a great vintage of elegance and fruit in the spirit of the 2007.

We brought in 11 plots which oscillate between 12.7 and 13.9 % of potential alcohol. The yield per hectare is close to 15 hl which is a little bit frustrating as it is way too low! This is the third vintage in a row, below our technical objectives which are 20 hl / ha (which is not very pretentious…).

This week we shall begin to draw off the first tanks for the first press - always good moments to share.

Our grape-pickers' team made a beautiful sorting with

a lot of precision, which allowed us to vinify almost all the tanks without SO2.

I enclose two or three photos of the grape harvests to make you share these beautiful moments in the life of the estate.

See you soon,

Matthieu"

Picking in Piedmont - Larigi Time!

Finally we are done with the Dolcetto picking, pressing and racking. We have now started barbera and the vineyard we decided to start with is Larigi.

Larigi is one of our oldest vineyards, it was planted by my grandpa Giovanni in 1948, and the vines still look healthy and in good shape...just like baby vines.

The production is always very limited, not just because of the age, also because we do a drastic green harvest in July-August to reduce the yield perhectar.

Since we had a very hot and dry summer, the grapes look really really healthy, in some spots even a little bit dry, they almost look like raisins, which tells us that the plant has been suffering a bit from drought (see pictures below)

The picking is done by hand and it usually takes a while because you have to look carefully at every grape and at every single berry to make sure there are no damages, and if see any, you pull the berry out and you throw it away, but this year we were picking as fast as superman, no need to check, Larigi was perfect!

Plus we had the supervision of Mr. Talin, 85 years old (and pictured below), our oldest but fastest picker of the cru. This is the first time he is not picking because of some health problems, he has been work ing the harvest with us for 70 years and he knows every single vine one by one, I’m sure he has names for all of them!

Once all the grapes have been harvested we took them to the crusher-disteammer, and big surprise: 25,5 brix sugar, this will be an other big juicy wine.

Once Larigi is totally picked, we will move on to our regular barbera vineyards, and then soon, the nebbiolo.

Cornas news - The harvest is under way at Domaine du Coulet

Matthieu Barret, the man in charge of the brilliant Domaine du Coulet, always innovating in a constant effort to improve his techniques, sent us this last week detailing the goings on in the run up to the harvest....

"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"

News from Etna: Harvest 2010

News just in from Marco de Grazia where the Tenuta delle Terre Nere harvest is under way...

"We just picked the best white grapes ever, and are starting with Feudo di
Mezzo. It looks very good to excellent, and could even rival 2008 if the
weather holds, particularly in Calderara.
Ciao,
Marco"

Sounds promising.....

The Burgundian harvest bodes well...

The 2010 Cote de Nuits harvest continues at a pace. Even though harvest had already started in the Cote de Beaune last week, there weren’t many Cotes de Nuits vignerons in their vineyard parcels. The first secateur cuts in the Cotes de Nuits would only have been this weekend just gone. My original assessment of the grapes on Monday 21st gave me reason to think that this will be a good quality vintage. Sugar was there, acidity though still a little marked at the time, has since fallen notably during the last 10 days of beautiful weather. This bodes well for a nice balance between alcohol and acidity in the final wines. The fine weather certainly allowed phenolic maturity to progress considerably in the last week and by the weekend full ripeness had nearly been reached. Now the work really starts...

Silvia Altare, Picking in Piedmont

(this post was written a little over a week ago and due to technical problems with our blogging site we have only just been able to get it posted)

Here we are, back to the crazy days, when heart beats a little faster, finger nails get dirtier and sleeping hours get shorter and shorter! Nothing has changed from last year at the Altare winery, we have the same old…or I should say “expert” pickers in the vineyards, and in the cellar you have me, Tes-san the Japanese super manga hero, Robert the winemaker from Cullen’s in Margaret River and Sorin the Romanian Mr. Fix it and Mr. Reliable...and of course Elio supervising all of us.

We are doing much better with foreign languages this year so much so that we are all experts in swearing and giving orders in each other’s languages. Working for a vintage in a cellar is a cheap and fast way to learn a language; perhaps we should start a new trend and have people coming for free work just to learn the language!

We started picking Dolcetto last week, finally back to the usual time of picking.Yes, we are expecting a great harvest, I know I should talk about harvest only when everything is picked and safe in the cellar, but I cant help it, grapes look amazing, the weather is just how it's supposed to be, the picking crew is all excited, and we are all here ready to work hard to make some good juice! The first pressing we made 2 days after crushing.

Dolcetto literally spends only 2 days in the rotary fermentor, and it’s amazing how much color, tannin and aromas we can get after only 2 short days on the skins. We picked at 21-22 brix, less than usual, but we will finally get a light Dolcetto, exactly as it’s supposed to be.

Getting the juice out the rotary fermentor is easy, but to get the skins and the seeds out and put them in the press, that’s something else! Your hands turn purple and when you are among people there is not hiding that you are a winemaker!! At the same time we were picking the white grapes of Bosco and Albarola in Cinque Terre, Liguria, where Elio has started a little winery a few years ago. It originally started as a hobby, but is now turning into hard work…just what we needed!

We are planning on starting barbera by the end of this the week, in the meantime, so that we don’t loose the’ momentum’ that we have now, we are labelling, doing visits at the winery, delivering, and the most fun, which I get to do, running the office :-(

Harvest News - The pick of the bunch

Drumroll please...

The stage is set and a verdant hush descends over the vineyards of the Northern Hemisphere. Harvest is upon us with it the old world's wine world tenses in collective anticipation at this most heart quickening time of the year. Vintages can be made and lost in the coming weeks when the clemency of the early autumn weather is well and truly put to the test.

So it is with delight that we announce voices old and new to guide us through the trials and tribulations of the various harvests. From the bunch to the blog in the quickest time possible we have...

...from Bordeaux's right bank, the returning voice of Edouard Moueix, providing updates from Providence, one of the stars in their stellar collection of Pomerol estates. New to us year is Maxime Thienpont, son of Luc, giving us the left bank perspective from the vines of our much loved Margaux micro-property Chateau Clos des Quatres Vents. Lovers of Piedmontese wines will be delighed to hear that Buyers' Blog favourite Silvia Altare has kindly agreed to furnish us with more of her delightful reports from the frontvine, while further south Marco de Grazia has agreed to give us updates from the slopes of Mt. Etna and one of our estates of the moment, Tenuta delle Terre Nere. Last and by no means least, the extremely affable August Kesseler has agreed to keep us up to speed on events in the Rheingau.

There are more big names to come so watch this space, it is guaranteed to be something of a harvest festival...

Winemakers Series: Voyager Estate, the final installment

Saturday 10th April 2010

As usually seems to happen we have had a slower couple of weeks waiting for all of the Cabernet blocks to fully ripen and we are now down to our final couple of days harvesting tomorrow and Monday. The Cabernet Sauvignon has followed a similar pattern to the Shiraz with lovely ripe flavours and perfect tannin ripeness at lower than normal sugar levels. The fruit is showing wonderful freshness and vibrancy with classic southern Margaret River flavours of cassis, mulberries and ripe red berries. The tannins are fine and ripe and, an indicator of the overall fruit ripeness, has been the woody development of the grape stalks and seeds. I do not recall a vintage where we have had such dry, crunchy seeds and, beautiful ripeness of the grape stalks with dry brown wood extending all the way to the bottom of the bunch. The overall fruit quality looks outstanding with all blocks performing to a very high level giving us a lot of exceptional batches to select from when we assemble the top wine.

The whites have all completed fermentation with the Chardonnay now in barrel for the next 12 months, and the Sauvignon Blanc Semillon components slowly being blended together.
The vintage has been our fourth very high quality season in a row which underlines the consistency of the Margaret River region and reinforces my initial perception of the region as a viticulturists paradise!

Steve James, Voyager Estate

Winemaker's Series: Delaire Estate

Morne Vrey brings us another update from Stellenbosch....

"All grapes are in and whites are nearly done with fermentation!


Our Sauvignon Blanc’s are looking very promising and we are very excited about the progress thus far. Fermentation process of Chardonnay is complete and is showing beautiful citrusfruit with rich minerality – it’s definitely a good Chardonnay vintage.

Rose is undergoing very slow but steady fermentation – we are very happy with the flavours, it’s going to be a beautiful wine!

Last grapes picked were our Cabernet Sauvignon, which is undergoing fermentation. Shiraz, Merlot and Cabernet Franc has been basket pressed and put in barrel for malolactic fermentation.  All in all, it has been a short but intense harvest and we very much look forward to the next couple of months, closely monitoring the progress…"

Winemaker's Series: Voyager Estate

Thursday 25th March 2010

It has been a busy week with all of our Shiraz now harvested. Due to the wonderful season and meticulous viticulture we have been able to harvest our Shiraz at lower sugar levels than normal and the resultant wines look sensational. I believe it is potentially the most impressive Shiraz that I have seen in my 12 years at Voyager Estate and, the aromatics, tannin ripeness and purity of fruit is truly exceptional. Some batches have already been pressed off and are waiting to go to barrel to soak up some of the lovely French oak.

We have also harvested most of our Merlot and some of the earlier picks of Cabernet Sauvignon. Again the nature of this excellent season has allowed harvesting of fruit with silky ripe tannins at lower Baume than normal, which I am sure will result in elegant wines with wonderful aromatics and classical varietal expression.

The weather has cooled off slightly and, we are getting mild days with no sign of any significant rain in sight - perfect conditions for finishing off the remaining blocks of Cabernet Sauvignon. Cabernet loves the milder weather and slower ripening at the end of the season to develop the concentration and tannin ripeness we look for.

We are all very happy and excited by the quality of what we are seeing and if the great weather continues we should be completed harvesting sometime during Easter.

Steve James, Voyager Estate

Winemaker's Series: Voyager Estate

Steve James' latest report is just in and things continue to look good for the Voyager harvest...

"Monday 15th March 2010

All of our white grapes have been harvested with our final white harvest of Chenin Blanc completed last Thursday evening. The Chardonnays are close to finishing fermentation and the Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon are ticking away nicely. It is always a great feeling to have the whites into the winery and safe from any of the impacts that nature can bring at this critical period. We are really happy and excited by the quality of the whites and I believe we will make some outstanding wines - particularly Chardonnay which looks exceptional.The first of our reds will be hand picked tomorrow morning with the eastern side of our Ullingers Block 2 Shiraz ready to go. The flavours in the reds look fantastic with lower than normal sugar levels and fine, physiologically ripe tannins. I suspect most of our Shiraz will be harvested by the end of this week and we should be starting Merlot and some Cabernet Sauvignon next week. Again - if the wonderful weather holds out we will be in for an exceptional red wine vintage. The slightly cooler conditions forecast for this week are great for slowly finishing the reds off."