Night Harvest at Bauduc
September 20th 2009, by Gavin
After some handpicking fun at the start of the harvest, it’s now down to business.
For the past five vintages we’ve harvested the white grapes – and the reds for rosé – by machine, in the small, wee hours of the morning. Early, chilly starts make for zippy, fresh grapes, even if we ourselves look a bit doggy at the end of the day. So you’ll be pleased to know that we don’t feature in this 5 minute clip, which might be of interest to wine lovers who have never seen harvesting machines at work.
This 4 hectare (10 acre) block of Sauvignon Blanc was the only white parcel at the château to produce any reasonable amount of grapes following the hail in May – and the grapes from here have always gone into our Bordeaux Blanc Sec. But the yield from this more protected part of the vineyard was still only 20 hectolitres (2000 litres) per hectare, way down on the maximum quota allowed in 2009 of 65 hl (6500 l)/ha.
Bordeaux Champions
June 1st 2009, by Gavin
A few hours after Chelsea beat Everton 2-1 at Wembley to win the FA Cup, Bordeaux became Champions of the French league on saturday night by winning away at Caen 0-1. Les Girondins pipped Marsailles to the title, and some 80,000 had gathered in front of the big screen in the city centre, in la Place des Quinconces, to witness the thrilling finale.
Bordeaux were last champions in 1999, the year we arrived here. It’s also good to see a direct wine connection, in that the Président, Jean-Louis Triaud (pictured), is the owner of two châteaux in Saint-Julien – the little-known, classified growth Château St-Pierre and the unclassified but better known Château Gloria.
Caterers in for the Weekend
October 7th 2008, by Gavin
We took a break from the harvest by entertaining a team from Charlton House, the caterers, who were staying with us for the weekend in the chateau and in the farmhouse. Dinner at the chateau on friday night was followed by a tour of Bordeaux vineyards on saturday, with a full-on evening out at La Tupina, Bordeaux’s best known restaurant. The wine list there is on the pricey side, and we wanted to drink wine from vineyards we’d visited, so we asked them politely if we could bring a bottle or two. They agreed and the bottle or two expanded to four magnums, but they didn’t seem to mind.
Clear Skies over Bordeaux
September 28th 2008, by Gavin
It’s late and the harvest would have been a shocker if it hadn’t been for this fine, dry spell during the second half of September. And Bordeaux is a beautiful city when the skies are blue.
“Two things surprised me about Bordeaux,” wrote Paul Shearer in an article in the Financial Times, back in June. “The first was the breathtaking beauty of the place. The second was the warmth of the welcome from the Bordelaises.”