September 30th, 2020:

Spring/Summer:

The world seems affected and infected by a terrible virus which is multiplying at high speed. At the estate, we are very worried by the announced and proven risks of spring frosts. The anti-frost towers are installed, the burners, the candles. In total, it takes several dozen hours of work to install the anti-frost system on a total of 30 hectares. 10 hectares remain unprotected this year. It is heartbreaking to "sail on sight" with these, but it is already a huge step to protect 30 hectares out of 40.
 For 10 nights, Pierre-Marie kept watch every hour, ready to deploy a real army of around forty brave souls made up of our permanent employees and friends. The positive energy got the better of the frost and here we are in mid-May working in the vines. The flowering is three weeks early and we will have to hustle to do three months' work in just six weeks.

While the vineyard team is busy, at the office it's a different atmosphere. While Sabine, Lydie and I became part-time school teachers (like many others) the fairs, visits and international trips are canceled.

 Customers around the world are in slow motion. We reinvented ourselves from the start of containment in France thanks to the support of our friends and customers with regular deliveries to Nantes. By activating our networks, we were able to cover some of the stock from usual orders we were not receiving.

There is no partial unemployment at the estate, the vineyard and management does not wait. 

The new plantations and replantings, which began in 2019, has seen the the Butte de la Roche plot getting a makeover. The planters joined us at the end of May and we anchored the babies (from our own massale selections) in this great terroir of peridotite- serpentinite. A plantation project is a bet on the future and future generations. This is the DNA of our profession as vignerons. Working hand in hand with past and future generations, reinventing yourself with each season.





Phew, here we are in mid-July, the vines are superb and the sky too. We are talking about harvesting in mid-August (with all that that entails with most people on vacation!) But the season is very beautiful and the vines are slowing their pace. Whatever happens, the cellar is ready; all we have to do is sound the trumpets and welcome the seasonal workers on the first day of picking. So we snuck out for a quick vacation to get some fresh air with the family and come back in great shape in mid-August.

End of summer/fall 2020

:

On August 24, the permanent team of the estate returned from summer vacation all tanned and rested, ready for the "grand harvest ball" on Wednesday, August 26th. Clos des Allées, Les Pierres Blanches, Butte de la Roche, La Grange, La Plécisière, Vera Cruz ...
The plots and terroirs follow one another day after day in a sustained rhythm accompanied by a joyful and attentive atmosphere.
During these 13 consecutive days of harvest, no less than a hundred seasonal employees will have marched through the estate. From the very young students on the first days to retirees and regular harvesters, the lively team delighted us with the work accomplished.
In terms of the balance of the juices, it is a real relief not seen for many vintages.

Balanced natural degrees and acidities, real yields; it makes our whole team smile again.

 As you all know if you follow our work, 2019 was a tiny crop; the wines of that vintage will be sold out in a couple of months and even weeks for certain  cuvées. We will do our best to satisfy each of you, as we did following the successive frosts of 2016, 2017 and 2019.

We just finished up the harvest, the most precocious in eight generations! We picked from September 7th to the 22nd, totally unheard of… Yields are solid (39hl/h) the potentials are fairly high but there is more acidity than in 2018. 

In Vouvray, many vignerons had very low yields due to the ongoing drought. We are at the northernmost part of the appellation where it is cooler. Our sector therefore has less alcoholic potential and higher yields. The struggle to find balanced maturities has for generations been an inconvenience, but now it’s starting to become a major advantage…

We are doing well and the harvest was positive. 2020 will remain in everyone's memory for the sad lockdown! Here, the beginning of spring was very dry, this allowed the vines to flower well and have a balanced development, which protected them from the rains in the following months. Fortunately, there was no hail and the heavy rains of early October occurred after the harvest of the most delicate grapes such as Uva Rara and Vespolina.

We have just finished the harvest, the grapes are healthy, sweet and in the right quantity (even in the recent vineyard at the Sanctuary), we are happy! Unfortunately, this year too, however, we have not reached the necessary quantity of grapes to produce the Erbaluce (Gino) : - (( Instead we managed to vinify a Croatina on its own!

We are attaching two photos: clusters at the shrine and break with distancing ... ahahahah

A warm greeting and a big hug,

September 22nd, 2020:

We are almost done with harvest (we still have a bit of Cabernet to pick). It's been another year of discovery; one nice thing about nature is that you are always learning. 

Over the last decade, it has been very hard to understand how climate change will affect us in the long term; 2020 was the most precocious vintage our appellation has ever seen. Usually a hot, early year is characterized by high concentration and rising sugar levels. But in the end, maturities were the same as a "normal" harvest started in September. We think the 40mm of rain we got right before harvest unblocked the maturities. 

So we started picking on August 24th, under a sun that stayed with us through the entire harvest (much to the delight of the pickers). A small rain on the afternoon of the 26th was the only time they had to put on their parkas. 

We harvested the grapes for the "Briords" cuvée first with potentials around 11.3% and acidities of 5.2. The following days were dedicated to grapes for "La Pépie", with degrees around 11%. We were very surprised that the potentials weren't quickly spiking as the days went by. As mentioned above, our experience (and that of our elders) in a vintage like this is a very abrupt rise in concentration. This makes sense since the days are longer and the temperatures stay up longer. Maybe the very dry month of July had something to do with this...

We started our second week (still in August, Monday the 31st) in the parcels of Château-Thébaud with potentials of 11.8%, then the next day we were in  Gorges. On September 3rd we picked "Gras Mouton" at dawn. It's the first presses that have potentials over 12%; the alcohol was finally climbing up, but very slowly. Ironically, we had invested in a second press this year in the idea of picking faster in case the potentials started ballooning out of control.

On Monday, September 7th, we picked the vines above the estate to make "Clisson"; as is always the case the grapes here were the most  concentrated:210 grams of sugar per liter for potentials of 12.8% and slightly lower acidities of 4.3. We were done with the whites on September 9th, a fact we are still very impressed with!

We harvested the Côt on September 9th and the 21st and have picked a part of the Cabernet. For the reds we did suffer some burnt clusters in certain sectors; it was surreal because some areas barely had grapes while other vines were bursting with fruit just three meters further. 

When you think that you harvested some of your reds on a date when, 20 or 30 years ago, a vigneron would be cleaning the cellar getting ready for his first day of harvest his whites, it really makes you think about how much has changed so quickly...

August 27th, 2020:

We have just finished the 2020 harvest (yesterday morning) in time to miss the two hottest days of the year. It is about 36°C right now, at 10:30 in the morning, so we are very happy to be pressing in the cellar rather than picking grapes. It has been a long and complicated summer  in the vineyards (everywhere...) but I am happy to say that we came out of it with a much better crop than last year. The building work on the cellar (phase 2) was finishing during our first week of harvest which was not ideal but we have the sense that things are finding their place. Us too. I don't think you have met Arzak our Spanish mastiff who came to us from a refuge in Zaragoza last year. He is a beautiful and somewhat impressive dog but terrified of people with a wonky hip to boot. 

Unfortunately Palkia, our beloved black labrador died in her sleep in May which left us all distraught but Arzak was completely lost until we took in a little braque  puppy, Ina who had been left in a box outside a local refuge in Rivesaltes. During harvest an emaciated tortoiseshell cat with large green eyes turned up with a fractured hip. Freya is now walking ok after an operation, and has gained weight from a diet heavy on sardines but will probably never be a great hunter which is a good thing with the local bird population flourishing in the cover-cropped fields. Several tribes of perdreaux and faisans roam around stuffing themselves with grains shrieking at anyone who gets too close. Very small steps towards rebuilding a living farm but there will be some fruit trees and some vineyard going in this winter. Judith is obviously making a strong case as to why we need horses. Apparently you can't just have one.

October 14th, 2020:

The best way to resume 2020 is precocious. After a spring that couldn't wait like most of us in confinement, the vegetation went into warp speed. Flowering started in early May and was done mid-way through the month: a whole month earlier than in 2019. The summer was very dry and hot, and the August temperatures blocked the grapes' maturation. It took some nice rain in late August for everything to get started again. 

Lots of new things in Mérignat!

It's a "20" vintage, and quantities are good. We've decided, in addition to our classic Gamay/Poulsard Cerdon, we have concocted lots of surprises:

-A méthode ancestrale Cerdon from 100% Gamay. 

-A 100% Poulsard méthode ancestrale brut nature. 

- A dry, still 100% Poulsard from Mérignat fruit. This cuvée was harvested by the whole family, our parents and kids sheers in hand! 

- A still Bugey from 100% Mérignat Gamay. 

Harvest lasted two weeks. We started on the 1st with the family, harvesting the small parcel of Poulsard that would become the dry wine. It will be sold as a Vin de France because Poulsard is only reserved for Cerdon in the Bugey. 

The more serious work began on the 2nd when our full team of lovely harvesters joined us. For 12 days, they picked Gamay and Poulsard under the sun. It was ideal conditions and good to see the grapes hadn't stressed too much from the hydric deficit and the August heat wave. The maturities were good and there was a nice balance of sugar/acidity. 

We are very excited to see where these go!

November 9th, 2020:

I'd sum up 2020 as the year when we stop complaining about the capricious nature of our climate and instead act, react, adapt and get used to it. As humans, we are much slower to adapt than plants and animals; or at least we do not have the same biological rhythm. It's difficult to be in harmony with nature, which we know so little about, when we continue to prioritize productivity and pseudo-modernism. In our case, we need to discern, focus, reflect, analyse and refine our methods in what we feel is the best direction. It's the esteemed common sense of a good peasant! 

After four years of "vaches maigres" (ed note: a French expression translating to "skinny cows", or lean crops), 2020 was a blessed year for us. It's certainly a tad premonitory at the time of this writing, especially for you all in the USA... All this to say 2020 was the biggest crop we've ever harvested in our history as vignerons. This had led to a new term for us: doing our best to be "moderately prolix" in our work. 

Other than a very dry summer (this is increasingly becoming the norm), the vegetative cycle was magnificent. We feel this result could not have been possible without our past efforts in the vineyards, the soil and the vines. The life of the soil and the deep roots of the vines into the mother rock are essential in navigating the hydric deficit we increasingly face. And the plant needs to feed its fruit for it to stay healthy.

The grapes followed a development cycle of ideal maturation, the result of intentionally pruning late to avoid spring frosts. This has proved efficient: our entire crop was up throughout the estate and of excellent quality. Our treatment regimen, perfected over the years, guaranteed that the vines stayed healthy for the crucial steps in its vegetative cycle. 

Even as harvest approached, we never stopped our work in the vines. By the time we'd set up the cellar to receive its first grapes, we were sure there was no more risk. Oidium is increasingly rearing its head in our vineyards and requires extreme vigilance. 

We were lucky to have a formidable team for the harvest, with a great ambience that felt alive and sincere. We had many loyal regulars and many new faces, all of whom got along swimmingly. After a very hot first week of picking essentially all the reds, temperatures became more manageable. These conditions allowed ripeness to slow down and gave us the opportunity to harvest everything at optimal maturity. The results are very encouraging, with whites that will produce mostly dry wine but also a petillant naturel (as well as an ancestrale rosé). The reds will be ideal and we can already sense density and finesse akin to "Hommage à Louis Derré" on a global level.

The pace of evolution of the new wines is slow but steady, we are following with precision the successful fermentations on the whites and the beginning of the élevage on the reds. We have a last vat of Pineau d'Aunis still macerating; we are following it day to day and it will go into a concrete egg, a new vessel for us this year.

We'll have also have a bit of moelleux in Jasnières this year. Other than that, we continue our experiments by vinifying a part of the "Vieilles Vignes Éparses" cuvée without S02 and well as a new cuvée this way.

We are now back in the vines, with the wines progressively evolving. The moment of fruit will soon fade for terroir to affirm itself. It looks like we'll be able to offer our full gamut and with good quantities on "Prémices", "Les Rosiers" and "L'Effraie". The reds and old vine cuvées will also be available in larger quantity and we believe they will be truly excellent: dry, elegant and precise. 

As an aside, as I write these lines (just to give you an idea how much we have been fixated on your election and everything going on on the other side of the ocean), we got the news. I hope that this victory and a new president will enact the changes we all hope to see for a better future. 

Best, 

Eric and the whole Bellivière team. 

November 16th, 2020:

The 2020 vintage will be remembered, hopefully not for the health and economic crisis but for the quality and finesse of the wines that will be released. It all started with an unusual spring; very dry, without rain, preceded by an equally dry and very mild winter. The very early start of budding initially created some concern, but with the arrival of rainy days in late May and early June, the situation normalized.

During the summer we had rain every 10 days or so. This and a few days of intense heat allowed a perfect phenolic ripening, slightly earlier than the "normal" harvests we've been doing since the 90's. In particular, the Merlot and Garganega from the softer hills benefited from these excellent conditions! The harvest began on August 30th and ended on October 18th, interspersed with heavy rains in mid-September.

The grapes, so well fed, fermented vigorously and regularly. Our task was only to monitor and prevent any olfactory reductions with decanting, to avoid fermentation stops or foul scents/loss of aromas. Our scientific research continues on the advantages and disadvantages of fermentation on the skins and experiments on the management of lees for conservation purposes, we will keep you updated! At the moment we are very happy with the result but only time will be able to confirm!

We have attached some photos.

See you soon, we hope!

Alessandro & Emma