Château de Chinon this morning from the Clos de l'Echo (pic: Charles Sydney)
(Delighted that Monsieur Charles has graciously given me permission to publish his vintage report.)
Thought it was time we sent you a preliminary vintage report...
Muscadet almost four weeks ago, on more-or-less the same date as last year. One month later, with the exception of a handful of the more committed red producers, the vast majority of the grapes throughout the Loire Valley are now in, although we are of course waiting for the final tris of Coteaux du Layon.
After a perfectly normal summer and despite our annual scare with rain, things are looking good. In fact, as the harvest has gone on, we’ve been getting happier and happier...
Muscadets from the better domaines are at least as good as last year, maybe even better, with young Pierre Sauvion’s comment of ‘ravi content’ summing it up nicely. That said, the situation in Muscadet is pretty catastrophic, and those growers who simply couldn’t afford to treat the vines in the summer had a lot of problems with rot, resulting in strange eau de vie aromas in the juice.
Any comments about the greed of growers asking too high prices are misplaced - 60 growers have gone bankrupt in the Pays Nantais since the harvest. You might like to see my ‘meltdown’ analysis in the attached letter.
In the Touraine and up in Sancerre and Pouilly, picking started upto a week later than last year. Rain around the 24th September put the frighteners on some growers but gave wonderful proof of the advantage of grassing through the vines.
The sauvignons look lovely - nice degrees, nicely balanced acidity and loads of fresh fruit - and there should be plenty of really attractive wines to enjoy. The gamays are less exciting, as too few people deleaf, debud and grass through the vineyards, but stick with the best growers (Marteau, Marionnet.*..) and you’ll be fine.
In Chinon, Bourgueil and Saumur-Champigny, picking in general started earlier than last year (another couple of days of rain set off some rot and panicked growers) but better growers waited (again), and benefitted from an extra 2 weeks of bright sunny weather and cooling winds, achieving a level of ripeness that seems clearly on a par with - or superior - to last year... It’s even tempting to compare with 2005, but I guess we need to wait till fermentations are over before promising too much!
For the chenins, once more, and despite some problems in Vouvray, the good guys have come up trumps, with some huge grins in Saumur and the Layon and more than one grower saying he was ‘aux anges’ ... For my money, and even before the final pickings, I’d bet heavily on 2010 being way better than 2009.
We will of course send you a full report once fermentations are over and we've tasted the wines.
* Not all the Marionnet Gamay vineyards are grassed over.
