Harvest report - 2024 harvest c’est terminé!

There are years when the grapes just seem to take care of themselves. 2024 is .. not one of those years. We have earnt our beautiful ripe berries through bloody hard work. Organic since day one, we can only fight mildew with organic matters. These wash away every proper rain and of those we have had plenty. It's been pretty relentless but we are very pleased with the outcome. 

We can do less about the weather. But for frequent rains throughout the growing season, we have simply had less sun and warmth than usual. Still, 2024 is a year of full phenolic (skins, pips, stems) ripeness, refreshing (not high) acidity but low alcohol. What a beautiful combination when paying attention to when to bring the berries in. Many will have harvested unripe grapes to avoid them rotting away. We believe this year is a year we can shine. Our yield is laughably low at 15hl per hectar so we have no excuses. 

On October 8th, the last grapes were brought into the winery. A loooong day but we hand harvested cabernet franc in the morning and finished petit verdot before bedtime, not to gamble with wind and rain later in the week. 

We had pickers sorting at the vine, sorting at the de-stemmer and .. obviously .. sorting at the sorting table. Only good looking grapes made it to the vats. 

A special shoutout to our petit verdots at around 13.5% potential alcohol and in amazing shape, possibly taking the no 1 spot in terms of grape conditions from beautiful castets!