En francais

As the last post described we started vendanges on Monday August 21st, very early in comparison with other years. The day was about getting the fruit from vines stressed by the drought of the last year, mainly to the western side of Puimisson. In some ways this first day was also a trial run for this year’s team. Gilles, Flora and Ines are long term members whilst newcomers so far are Mustapha and Vincent.

Mustapha is Moroccan born and has been part of the picking team in recent years but wanted to learn more about the whole winemaking process. He is a ball of energy, he’ll certainly keep us busy. Vincent is a Québecois now living in France and we shall be joined soon by Andrew from Australia, a friend of James Madden who did harvest with us in 2016 before establishing his own Scintilla Wines in the Adelaide Hills.

The first picking was the Muscat d’Alexandrie of Peilhan vineyard, which has had minimal rain in the last ten months. This was pressed and put into a tank on its own. Next came Morastel from the 2015 plantation on the terrace of Peilhan. This suffered from disease last year and so has struggled with the drought even though other vines on the terrace have been ok.

Castets, with its small berries, was also suffering so it too was picked. The nearby Flower Power vineyard, a field blend of more than 20 varieties, has small gobelet vines and even though it looked better this year than ever before it too needed picking. To add to these grapes, picked early and. therefore, not fully ripe, Jeff added some Grenache from La Garrigue and some Carignan Blanc from Peilhan. This wasn’t fully ripe itself but more than the others, and so, will offer balance in the blend with the other red grapes picked today. Early analysis showed a healthy 13 degrees of alcohol with good acidity to support the nascent wine.

The grapes are very healthy, the drought has at least prevented any mildew or oidium. Sorting the red grapes was straightforward, mainly removing leaves and snails. The snails have clearly been seeking any moisture in the parched landscape and they clung to the grapes in desperation. After destemming the grapes were sorted a second time to remove any stalks or leaves which has made their way through. They were then put into small stainless steel tanks, three were filled and Jeff was reasonably content with the quantity, fairly typical yields despite the small grapes.

So, we’re underway. Tuesday is a day off then we’re back to it for the rest of the week. Monday registered temperatures up to 39c, it is due to be even hotter on Wednesday. Picking takes place only in the early morning in such heat, but even in the cellar we were in need of large quantities of water. Spare a thought for us!

I haven’t updated this satellite map I made in 2016, but it shows you the positions of Peilhan, Font D’Oulette and La Garrigue mentioned in the post and how they are separated from Segrairals at the other end of Puimisson which has 16mm of rain on June 29th whereas those vineyards got nothing