The Wine Report

In this blog I'd like to discuss wine. Of course I'm talking about both wine from the 2007 Vintage as well as wine from the new 2008 crop, a harvest you can see in the picture taken by Christian Chiriaeff. In years to come I'd love to see our clients in pictures like this but for now I'm just happy that we can begin to be a part of the rejuvenation of this amazing place.

The 2008 harvest, "les vendanges" as its known in France, was completed after an unusually wet August in the region, which contributed to increased mildew and mold develpment in the grapes. Inspecting several of the small vineyards it was apparent that the overall yield would be down from previous years by as much as 70%. Still , handpicking and hand sorting should result in a wine that is superior to the machine picked product from many of the other vineyards in the area. Occurriung over approximately three weeks, the harvest happened through most of September and in some areas of the region, even into October. This contrasts with 2007 where the harvest began much earlier, in August in fact, and was more or less complete by mid-September.

Time alone will tell what levels of quality are to be achieved with this vintage but the Cooperative, although gloomy ont he prospect of volume, felt excited by the prospects for the new vintage. Mind you, there are few French winemakers who don't get excited even by the idea of the next vintage so, as I said, we'll see by December where it comes out.

The 2007 vintage is almost ready for bottling and we are in the throes of discussing both that and the challenges of shipping. There are a variety of logistical issues to work out as this is the first shipment we are making but I expect that all things will fall into place by December and shipments will be made in January from France by boat. I suspect I will hand deliver most of the commitments for the year so hold on to your hats as we enter into this exciting next phase of vineyard ownership....trying your own wine. For those that might want to have their own labels affixed we need to get them composed and produced no later than January I think depending ont he form of shipment. It is by the way, a pretty good first production, by all accounts and I look forward to sharing a glass of it with each of you.