With or without you. A bad year for me with bereavements and serious operations for family and friends and then, to crown it, a car accident prevented us from getting out to the Languedoc for the start of vendanges as intended. To continue the metaphor, an annus horribilis.

Was it a tale of woe for Jeff Coutelou? Well, no. Abundant rain in Spring went a long way to restoring the water table but that was followed by extreme heat for a long period over the summer. Rain and heat bring disease and downy mildew in particular. Temperatures over 40c which endured for a significant time also stress the vines and cause then to go into survival mode rather than ripening fruit. Nonetheless Jeff told me that he was reasonably content with how things were looking as vendanges loomed close. The start date was August 26th which is in line with recent vintages. Sadly, that accident meant that I would not be part of the team for the first week as I’d hoped.

Upon arrival I did a tour of the vines and received quite a surprise. I knew that Jeff had given up on Flower Power vineyard (Font D’Oulette) the imaginative field co-plantation of over 20 grape varieties. Sadly, after a promising start and favourable reviews in magazines the Flower Power project was fatally damaged back in 2016 when snails ravaged the vineyard. The vines never properly recovered from that episode. I recall spending a whole day collecting snails from the vines and still they came! Recent harvests had seen tiny quantities from the parcel, a few cases and Jeff finally lost patience. So the vines were grubbed up, that I expected.

What I didn’t know was that Jeff had also decided to pull up (arrachage) other parcels too. The original red grape section of Peilhan with varieties such as Carignan and the rare Castets were gone. The area above it was planted in 2015 with a range of unusual, local varieties such as Piquepoul Gris and Noir, Terret Gris and Noir and Monastrell. They are now producing good quantities of interesting wine and the new Xarel-lo parcel made its first wines last year too from Peilhan. Add on the two year old plantation of Parellada, Malvasia de Sitges and Maccabeu and the vineyard will actually be producing greater quantities than before but I was sad to see Castets disappear.

Disease, particularly in the trunks of the vines, was the main reasoning for pulling out that red section and also for grubbing out the old Mourvedre vines in Segrairals vineyard. In truth I never liked the grapes much from there, a small amount of rain would often send them over the edge to rot. And then..

Sainte Suzanne is a vineyard I always liked a lot. It was where I did a lot of my early picking back in 2014 and 2015 and the Syrah and Grenache were usually the source of Vin des Amis, the cuvée which first hooked me to Jeff’s wines. Standing on top of the ridge in La Garrigue you get a good view across to Ste. Suzanne and I was astonished to see that the original parcel is empty too!

The newer white parcel of Clairette and Maccabeu is in fine form but the big empty space made me sad. Jeff told me that the Grenache vines were starting to develop too much wood disease and the Syrah had become problematic. I knew of the latter, Syrah tends to be the first variety to ripen for us and Jeff has found it gets too ripe too soon in that parcel which has a south facing slope. Contrasting with the Syrah of La Garrigue which was deliberately planted on a north facing slope.

There will be a significant change to white grape production from red as a result of all these changes, with the plantations in the main three vineyard of Peilhan, Segrairals and Sainte Suzanne. Much has changed in my 12 year of vendanges here.

As for the vines still there. Mildew was evident in the leaves but I have to say I was pleased to see that there were a lot of very healthy looking bunches with good sized grapes. In the first few days the team had been flat out. The pickers arrived, fifteen rather than the usual eight! They made short shrift of much of the crop in the first few days and it was the team in the cellar which had to try to keep up, working until 7pm on the first day for example. I regretted missing out and offering a helping hand.

Then I was due to start today Monday September 1st, only for a thunderstorm to cancel picking. Damp grapes and very muddy soils do not make for good winemaking. It was time to press the first of the red grapes, the whites already harvested were pressed quickly. Fair to say that fermentations have started well as you can see in the video.

So, much of the harvest is in. Still plenty for me to help out with in coming days. Congrats to the team who have been busy as you can see below.