Harvest has begun – on August 24!

Sometimes we overlook the most obvious signals: Harvest actually started last Thursday with the Criots-Batard-Montrachet and Chevalier-Montrachet of Domaine d’Auvenay.

One would expect anyone in the know to follow this estate – including me. But in reality, I am in the Côte de Nuits near Vosne-Romanee, so the Côte de Beaune is far away (apparently).

The weather is changing

It also seems the hot weather is taking a break. It was chilly today – below 20C – and talk of problems with botrytis in the vineyards is now quite dominant following last week’s hot, then wet, weather.

Today – August 28 – Olivier Lamy started his harvest at Domaine Hubert Lamy, so the big guns are beginning to roll.

Harvest logistics

Burgundy is very complex, with thousands of plots, within some of which different varieties are planted, not to mention different clones or massale vines, with different vine age.

This is why talking about ripeness or issues in the vineyards is really only has a meaning from a micro-perspective. Often, saying that a vineyard is ripe, or lacking acidity, is just plain nonsense, given that a producer frequently has several different types of grapes to harvest even within a single parcel. So nonsense it frequently is when journalists (like me) speak about ripeness levels in vineyards, or even sections of a vineyard.

This also means that harvest is a logistical nightmare, and always a compromise.

Generally, the vineyards that are most important revenue-wise are given priority. Then its a question of allocating harvest and/or cellar resources. Can you process the grapes? Will there be baie-par-baie destemming? All this must be weighed. 

It’s a big jigsaw puzzle whose pieces constantly change. The most volatile piece, of course, is the weather. What seems like a good idea at the start of the harvest may turn into a disaster after a couple of days of rain.