We started the machine harvest on September 15, 2011. The weather’s been perfect and the grapes came in very cool as we started predawn (4h45AM). A few surprises but lots of good things to report. High hopes for the rest of harvest and the potential of this vintage for the entire Languedoc Roussillon!
I don’t really have time to wax poetic but there were some take away points worth mentioning:
- After much talk about increased yield, Syrah seems to come in at a very low average of 35 hectoliters/hectare
- WWOOFers are very helpful around harvest time
- Merlot came in very clean with this new harvester
- Syrah was a lot of work at the sorting table (mostly snails) and I think we should do more by hand
- Everything tastes great showing a full maturity despite slightly higher yields in some parcels
Some harvest photos