Wednesday and Thursday saw the harvest and team get in to full swing after the practice run of Monday. Well, that was the plan and it mostly happened like that but technology let us down. Not the end of the world but on days when temperatures reached 42c it was not helpful to have to adapt to unforeseen adversity. Nonetheless, we battled through and filled some large tanks with lots of grapes. Well, Syrah (and a little Clairette). The good news was the return of Boris who has been part of the vendanges for the last five years.
The Clairette was from the parcel at the bottom of Sainte Suzanne which was planted 5 years ago together with Macabeu. I showed a photograph of the Clairette last time and it was clear that these vines were under stress. So, it was picked Wednesday morning, straight into the press and tank. It’s quite low alcohol and acidity so will be used for blending.
Cellar work starts before the first grapes are picked, cleaning tanks thoroughly. And the Morastel needed punching down (pigeage) even after a day.
Then it was on to the Syrah of Sainte Suzanne, usually part of Le Vin Des Amis. Despite being most famous for Rhone wines such as Côte-Rôtie or Barossa Valley Shiraz the experience here in the Languedoc is that Syrah does not like too much sun and heat. Obviously in southern France it is used to both but it’s about balance. The Ste Suzanne grapes were small, lacking moisture of course. Nonetheless they were fine, disease free and at the sorting table we only had to remove snails and leaves.
But, oh that sorting table. A new one had been bought but it wasn’t working properly and we had to do more triage by hand, slowing things down. The engineer arrived, nothing he could do after an hour and the table was shut down altogether. On to sorting from cases for the last hour of Wednesday. 42c weather and the heat from the grapes made for uncomfortable conditions, but I still wouldn’t have swapped for the pickers in the vineyards.
On Thursday more Syrah. This time from Segrairals and La Garrigue, the latter grapes being the Syrah used to make La Vigne Haute in the best vintages. Sadly, this is not one of those years for Syrah. A replacement sorting table had now arrived, an older version but still useful. The grapes from La Garrigue may not have been LVH standard but they were higher quality, juicier and healthy.
All went well through the day until near the end (again) another mechanical failure, this time the érafleur, part of the cube which destems and sends the grapes to tank. Fortunately this was fixed by the next day. Meanwhile, the new sorting table was returned. Only to fail again on the trial run. So, back came the replacement again. Fair to say that this was not helping Jeff’s stress levels.
The Syrah has good acidity and alcohol levels but lacks some nitrogen so it has had a struggle to start fermenting. Fortunately some of the grapes from Saturday’s pick (more next time) are quite rich in nitrogen and some of those will kick start the Syrah, hopefully.
Challenging is how I’d describe these two days. The stifling heat, the need to protect vines, the technical problems. But we made it through.
amarchinthevines 