2019 vintage

A vintage full of nuances and contrasts:

Winter 2019 was mild and not very wet. The spring was long and dry with cool morning temperatures of 6 degrees lasting until the last week of June. Blooming was, therefore, quite difficult as it spread out over ten days with major differences between the young and old vines. So, we there was a lot of millerandange and we got juiceless and more acidic low-weight berries.

Once again, we escaped from the frost in the last week of April and mobilized the village’s wine growing teams.

The summer temperatures arrived without any transition the last week of June, and still without any rain.

So, we were a fortnight behind in plant development in comparison to years past by this time of the year.

July was temperature, slightly windy and dry.
On the other hand, the vines were still in good health conditions, there was no mildew and the risk of oidia was well under control.

There was a second heatwave the last week of July with temperatures of up to 37 or 38 degrees. The young vines began to suffer from a lack of water; the leaves were removed to save the plants, but they generally resisted. The best Terroirs showed no signs of drought. So, we decided not to strip the vines this year.

The month of August arrived with two rainfall episodes with 20 mm falling twice over Gevrey which really saved our vines.

At the beginning of September, we decided to move up our harvest date a week and scheduled it for 15 September after the first sampling showing natural degrees of 12 and 12.5.  The final analyses that week showed stable acidity and phenolic compound parameters with a balanced sugar content in the juice. The varietal aromas were very much present.

So, it was time to start harvesting. The lower Gevrey plots were more advanced and the lovely terroirs in Gevrey 1st Cru and Grands Crus resisted the stress of changing temperature remarkably.

It is yet another surprising Vintage! To be continued...