Now that the wines are safely in the cellar, it is finally time to recap our 2015. And it's a good recap, at least for those who love our wines and/or like to hear about successful transitions, since our son Clément will be joining the estate this December!
2015 is first and foremost a calculated reaction to three consecutive vintages that were extremely low in quantity for us, resulting in serious setbacks for many of our long term-projects. Small harvests force you to put yourself into question, especially when the desire to progress and push things ever-further is still so strong. But we will always stay positive, because a peasant economy is that of patience and prudence; always anticipating the moment to bounce back. 2015 will have been that year in spite of meteorological conditions that had us worried. Here are a few preliminary, general observations:
The last few extremely low harvests led to deep reflection of our viticultural practices, and more importantly forced us to react. As you know, in viticulture you need to react fast because your entire crop can so quickly be compromised. We therefore revised our pruning choices in the 2014-2015 winter to induct a better flowering by keeping our woods longer. I can confidently say the results are already there, because we were able for the first time in a many years to harvest a reasonable 30hl/ha. Considering the usual density of our juices, this gives me a better perspective for the prosperity and evolution of the estate. We will continue reflecting on this work in 2016 to bring regularity and stability to our vines.
The arrival of our son Clément will permit us to push our philosophies further. His solid education in Dijon, focusing primarily in viticulture and soil culture, will provide a seriously needed second opinion. Now let's talk about the vintage:
With our changes in pruning, it was essential that the rest of the year follow suit for the grapes to develop properly. We were lucky enough to benefit from a smooth period of flowering despite weather conditions that were less than favorable. Even the bunches picked from the vines which flowered last were quite good in quality. Not only is this quite rare, but it will also create complexity in the wines due to the larger diversity of bunches picked. Even the young vines showed two separate generations of flowering, which again will lead to more interesting wines.
As far as cryptogamic maladies (mildew, etc...), all worries ended in late June due to persistently dry weather. Our tireless dedication to working our soils meant that the vines did not suffer from the lack of water during the drought, yet were more than ready to absorb September's cooling rains.
The grapes' maturities came along regularly with no major hiccups. With a relatively abundant crop, we waited patiently for both whites and reds, young vines and old. The maturities hover around 13.5% for the reds and between 12.5% and 14.5% for the whites.
2015's grapes had very thick skins. This meant less juice (at least we thought it did), but also solid grapes that were extremely resistant to rot, so they did not buckle under the rains of September and the few showers during harvest. I've never seen anything like this here: the grapes kept their excellent sanitary state, aromatic quality and concentration until the very end. In fact, the rains that had us so worried actually ended up relaxing the vines, liberating maturities and guaranteeing larger amounts of juice.
Another reaction to our low harvests was to pick earlier and certainly with less finesse. Fortunately, acidities were strong and our less accelerated rhythm this year meant we could wait for optimal ripeness to obtain the most balanced grapes imaginable. In the end, we are extremely satisfied with our choices this year, and even more so that there were actually grapes in the vines! We'd almost forgotten what it was like...
So yes, there will be wine to sell in 2015! This has gotten us back on track to pursue our other projects, something we'd always kept our sights on. The biggest, of course, was building our new cellar, fortunately ready for action on our 21st harvest.
Entirely designed to work by gravity, we have created a cellar that frees us of the extreme physical limitations of our old one while also permitting more quality control in the many separate vinifications we do. It's almost done, as we are still working out a few final details. Photos are attached.
