The harvest is the most important time of the year. Still, global warming is stirring this annual event, as planning has become more difficult as the harvest is becoming earlier and earlier. The demands for agility, flexibility and speed are thus increasing.

Harvest is normally planned well ahead … where all the practicals are prepared and the personnel needed are sourced.

The start date is estimated, and a certain flexibility is often built into the planning – meaning that the harvest date can be somewhat adjusted.

And by adjusted … I mean a few days … a week (in some cases, but not normally). It is in this case often difficult to move the harvest forward, as this will in 2025 involve the planning of the pickers’ holidays held in August.

So when the weather changes and a heat wave hits, it can be very difficult to pull out all the stops and start with the reds in Côte de Nuits next week.

It is not only a question of practicality, it is also a question of quality, as the grower wants to have his core team in place for the harvest.

And finally, there is the financial side … meaning getting enough pickers in time is a question of paying … paying the pickers or the prestatuers to show flexibility and being ready and able to pick when wanted and needed.

So … it is easy to criticise the growers for not adjusting the harvest time when the canicule is burning the grapes … but in reality, a lot of the planning was done and partly fixed weeks ago … and sometimes a month ago or even more.

There is, however, no doubt that this is a topic we will see in the years to come, as the harvests in August typically will be speedy and require another kind of readiness and accuracy.

Good luck to the growers and to the pickers … it will be a hot harvest

The potential problem – the Catch-25

The issue in 2025 will be to get perfect phenolic ripeness before the acidity drops into the problematic zone. Sugar and alcohol will be what it is … should be quite low ideally …

If the acidity drops too much, we will have issues with the balance of the wines … as they will lack the all-important freshness and liveliness – we need this very quality to a great Burgundy – it should be “frais et legér” – vin d´émotion.

And then we have the problems with stability of the wines, where low acidity wines (high pH) will be prone to getting Brettanomyces and or Volatile acidity.

The timing is now more or less fixed

Below you see the Winehogs harvest forecast … at the moment, I think we will see some Côte de Beaune producers who will start before August 20th.

In Côte de Nuits, most have planned to start August 25th and September 1st/2nd – based on information from leading Oenologue.

Forecast date	Harvest Côte de Beaune	Harvest Côte de Nuits
May 28th	August 20th	August 25th
June 29th	August 22th	August 25th
July 27th	August 25th	August 25th
August 12th	August 22th	August 25th
August 13th	August 20th	August 25th

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Harvest articles

• Harvest 2025 – More Rain …
• Harvest 2025 – And then came the rain
• Harvest 2025 – Full steam ahead in the south
• Harvest 2025 – rain and chapter 2
• Harvest 2025 – Start August 17th … new record
• Planning the harvest – a challenge in 2025
• Harvest 2025 – harvest now?!
• Harvest 2025 #3 – At a record-breaking speed
• Harvest 2025 – #J-14 – Harvest News 2-2025
• Harvest 2025 – #J-15 – the catch-25
• Harvest 2025 – #J-15 – Harvest News 1-2025

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