2011 Vintage Report

2011 Syrah being machine harvested at vineyard in Languedoc2011 Vintage Report

People have been asking me about how the vintage is going to turn out since back in August.  I’m always hesitant to guess at quality that early in the game, and this year is a perfect example of why we shouldn’t be too confident in our speculation.

All year, the vines were ahead of schedule and carrying a pretty bountiful crop of grapes.  But in the last stretch, conditions changed drastically and how winemakers responded to those changes will lead to  a wide spectrum of results.  I think that quality of 2011 Languedoc wines will vary wildly depending on yield, microclimates, and harvest strategy.  While this variance is always something to consider, it’s especially crazy this year.

O’Vineyards 2011 Vintage

The grapes were tasting great since mid August which is unusually early.  We taste them daily with the tour groups that come through to visit the vineyard.  Normally they don’t start tasting good until closer to harvest.  As I explained to the tour groups, the flesh of the fruit tasted good but the seeds were still green.

As we continued tasting, I felt confident that the ripeness would be there by the second week of September.  Muse the dog was also eating grapes in the second week which is usually a good sign!   The lab was telling us to wait and was predicting that the grapes would be ready late in the third week or fourth week of the month.  I thought that was ludicrous and we went ahead and started harvesting on the night of the 14th.

Grapes came in very well and very ripe.  In retrospect, we sort of look like genius wine wizards.  People who followed the textbook guidelines on how to harvest may have been taken off guard by several of the unusual circumstances this year.

Unusual circumstances of 2011 harvest

It was a very late summer with tshirt and shorts weather through most of September and part of October. This had an incredible effect on the late ripening period for the grapes in my area.  Lots of shriveling and therefore less water and higher sugar content.

There was also a special kind of late season mildew which knocks out the youngest leaves on the plant.  This wasn’t a problem for us because we had low to moderate yields and lots of healthy leaves.  But if you had a lot of grapes on the plant, you might have needed those young leaves in the final stretch.  Then again, most of the producers that really push yield also treat more against mildew and it seemed like my neighbors weren’t much affected by this.

It seems like there were less pips this year.  We didn’t really notice this until decuvage, but it seems significant.  2-3 seeds per grape instead of 2-4.   The grapes also stained our equipment a lot less than usual which might be related to the fewer seeds observation.

It’s also worth reminding you that the vines were very far ahead of schedule earlier in the year.

All this combines for a crazy late season.  Winemakers who harvested later might be facing extreme concentration levels.  The grapes started shriveling very quickly in the record-breaking heat we had at the end of September.  Judging by the dates some people were harvesting, I imagine some of my neighbors were bringing grapes in at 17% and 18% potential alcohol.  These concentrations are obviously TOO high to be making typical terroir wines.  Independent wineries can counter this by illegally adding water (although that’s not an alternative that fills me with joy).  And this sort of cheating can be harder to pull off in larger more public wineries like cooperatives (depending on the visibility and honesty of the winery).

On the other hand, winemakers who brought things in early might face some other issues.  For example, if you prune for high yields, you were looking at exceptionally high yields this year.  But exceptionally high yields can mean it takes longer for the seeds to ripen.  So if you brought in your harvest early, you might still have green seeds.  But if you waited too long you might have ripe seeds but you’ll also have huge sugar levels.

Anyway, we hit some kind of magical middle path.  We pruned for low yields.  The bumper harvest just meant a normal amount of grapes on our vines (floating around 40 hectoliters/hectare).  So we got seed maturity early enough that we could bring the grapes in at a reasonable 14-15% potential for the most part.

And there are lots of other variables I’m probably not noticing or forgetting to mention.  Components like surface area of foliage, depth of roots, deep water reservoirs, and so on.  And there are much finer variables that people hardly mention like leaf attrition, cane width, migration of African swallows carrying coconuts by the husk, etc.  😉

Hopefully this has been helpful and gives people some insight into the 2011 vintage.  Should be a fun one. 😉

I found an amazing vintage video in the Prelinger Archives where the US Department of Agriculture Soil Conservation Service is encouraging farmers to start catering to farm tourism.  Circa 1965.

It’s perfectly hokey.  But it’s also interesting to see some old ideas about rural tourism (and consider that many of the ideas remain the same today).

If you found this post because you’d like to have a rural vacation, then you can find more information about visiting O’Vineyards or staying in our Bed & Breakfast.

There’s a really interesting theme about returning to childhood or simpler times.  Something to think about and perhaps explore more in our own rural recreation.  I think one of the reasons I’ve neglected this theme is because wine is inherently an adult subject in the USA.  But there’s still something to think about here.  Also I want a narrator like this in all moments of my life. 😀

The video is Public Domain in case you want to use it somewhere else! 🙂

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

How to find us

Domaine O’Vineyards, located in the North Arrondissement of Carcassonne, is just minutes from the Carcassonne train station, the Medieval City, and the Carcassonne Airport.
GPS coordinates: 43.259622, 2.340387

O’Vineyards
Wine, Dine, Relax at our Boutique Vineyard
Unique thing to do in Carcassonne
Wine Cellar. Winery Visits. Wine Tasting.
Wine & Food Pairing

North Arrondissement of Carcassonne
885 Avenue de la Montagne Noire
11620 Villemoustaussou, France
Tel: +33(0) 630 189 910

  1. Best by GPS.
    Follow the signs to Mazamet/ Villemoustaussou using the D118. At the end of the last straight part of D118, you will come to a roundabout with the Dyneff gas station.
  2. Take the exit towards Pennautier. Continue 500m to a small roundabout and go straight over.
  3. Look out for the second road on your right, Avenue des Cévennes which curves up hill (about 1km) to Avenue de la Montagne Noire on the left.
  4. At the last juction, bear left. the road sign “Ave de la Montagne Noire” (confusing as it seems to show a right turn)
  5. After another 500m you will see our red brick color building in the middle of the vines.
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