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