The wheel of Fortune goes round and after two difficult vintages, the 2014 harvest seems to be a relief for Burgundy producers – both for its quantity and quality.
Most of the Burgundy wine producers have started grape harvest in the beginning of last week.
Claude Chevalier, the president of Inter-professional Bureau of Burgundy Wine (BIVB) has stated, after a hard wine harvest session, that the rates of return are close to norm, but significantly lower than the average for the previous vintages.
Chevalier announced that as for his own domaine, domaine Chevalier, located in Lodoix-Serrigny, the grapes are of fine concentration and present a good phenolic maturity. And the most important thing is that there’s plenty of grapes!
Multiple unripe grapes as well as grapes affected by acetic rot with vinegar smell are thrown away from the sorting tables. The rotting process is partly provoked by fruit flies, Drosophiles suzukii, present during the harvest. These flies go crazy about cherries, and the cherry season was long enough for the drosophiles flies to pass from cherries to grapes during the grape harvesting. Moreover, the temperature close to 20°C has favored their presence from August till the wine harvesting time.
Approximately 1,45 million hectolitres are expected from Burgundy region production, from Chablis to Mâcon, which is moderately below average, equal to 1,5 million hectolitres.
This numbers take into account the above-average production of Côte de nuits, but at the same time the lower production of Côte de Beaune and Mâconnais as a result of strong hailstorms in the end of June.
The vintage of this year was expected to be correct but not exceptional due to cold temperatures and frequent rainfalls this summer, but the last three weeks preceding the crop, being sunny and hot, have saved the harvest.
According to Sylvain Pitiot from Clos de Tart in Morey St Denis, 2014 is going to be a very good vintage!
Many domaines had to «clean » the vines and aerate the grapes in order to avoid Botrytis during heavy and multiple rains in August.
The harvests that have ended up around 18-20 September announce the alcohol percentage somewhere between 11,8 and 12,3%.
Apparently, this 2014 vintage is going to surprise us with its extraordinary quality of white wines, which will reflect a good balance between acidity and ripeness.
The 2014 wine harvest made Burgundy wine producers happy with its quantity as well as its quality. And now we have from 12 to 24 weeks until we see these wines bottled and have the opportunity to taste them.
