November 21st, 2022.
After another winter without much cold weather, we were ready for potential frost in late-March/early April, right when budding was starting. For a second there, it felt like we were going to have a "remake" of 2021: once again, April 3rd and 4th announced sub-freezing temperatures. This time we decided to take whatever precautions we could, most notably a later pruning to delay budding on the more vulnerable vines on the bottom of our coteaux. We also did a contact treatment of pulverized pectin in Franclieu the day before the announced frost (this reinforces the grapes to withstand an additional 1 to 2 degrees of cold). Finally, we created a few fires from old vine trunks. It was announced to drop to -3°- 4° but only got down to -1°, resulting only in a snow flurry. What a relief!
We then had a fairly normal Spring without any excess in water. But it was already trending towards drought by May, setting off a particularly early flowering period similar to 2003 (from May 18th to the 29th). Under good conditions, we anticipated a harvest in August.
June was very dry but followed by beneficial rains: 150mm but spread out over three episodes in a 10 day period. This was great because the soils were able to absorb the water; usually rain in the summer comes in the form of violent storms that hit all at once, eroding the soils and going straight into the gutter.
We then went back to hot, sunny weather which kept up until harvest. We were hoping for some rain in mid-August, something that happens often and gives the grapes a much needed push in their maturation. Not this time...
By this point, you could see the youngest vines planted on coteaux and all top rows were clearly suffering from lack of water, some losing their foliage. While we waited for the rain, the grapes' maturities ended up getting there on their own. Our harvest started on August 24th. The sanitary state was perfect (no surprise with the lack of rain) with a lot of grapes from vines that had not suffered as badly as we'd expected (probably from the rains in June).
Unsurprisingly, the levels of acidity are fairly low. The PH levels are fairly high but not quite the record breaking levels of 2003. Sugar was quite present, with potentials between 13 and 14%. Fermentations started well, helped by keeping the juices at an optimal cold temperature; the grapes and must would quickly creep up to 30° right before noon, so the cold cellar was essential. In fact we only harvested in the mornings so that I could avoid getting juices at higher temperatures (and preserve our harvest team!)
While we weren't necessarily expecting it, we did have some fermentation issues towards the end of the process. The alcoholic fermentation started slowing down and malolactic started before the sugars were fully transformed (low acidity+ high PH+ low sulfites = malo!). This was the case on almost all my vats; I was worried that I would see spikes in volatile acidity but in the end they actually are the lowest in the estate's history (these are the mysteries of vinification). At the time of this writing, not everything is finished, with many wines blocked with eight to nine grams of RS left, most notably Franclieu where I need to reactivate it to get to the four gram limit accepted by the appellation.
All in all, I find the wines quite charming, retaining freshness (the malos are all done, that's exceptional at this time of year) and good structure. I believe this will be a vintage that can be enjoyed right at release. We'll have to confirm this in a few months...
