A truly exceptional vintage

As reported in the “Beaujolais News” from the 20th of July, we’ve had an extremely hot and sunny summer. This brought us a very early harvest in Beaujolais, with an official harvest start date on the 24th of August for both the Beaujolais and Beaujolais-Villages AOC. Some of our winemakers in the earliest-ripening regions were even granted leave to start picking their grapes on the 21st of August.

We were lucky enough to have a few beneficial rain showers on the 10th, 14th and 23rd of August, but rainfall varied significantly across the different sectors. This was such a relief for our winemakers – just what they were waiting for to put some colour back in the vine leaves and plump up their grapes!

Every year, just before the harvest, we make an excursion out into the beautiful Pierres Dorées region. This year, we went up to vineyards located at 450m above sea level to see vines on slopes so steep they can only be picked by hand.

Thanks to the excellent health of their vines, each winemaker is able to wait until peak maturity before harvesting their grapes. We only get to pick our grapes once a year, so nothing can be left to chance.

From the very start of the harvest period, it was clear that in terms of vine health, this was the best year we’d ever seen. In some years, we need to sort our grapes both on the vine and in the trays at the edge of each plot, but the grapes this year were so good that it was completely unnecessary. For the two sorting tables at our winery, we cut the number of sorters in half, from the usual eight down to four. Even this small team was more than enough; aside from a few vine leaves here and there and one or two grapes which had turned to raisins in the burning sun, all of our grapes were absolutely magnificent and resplendent in their deep violet-red skins. This could be the best harvest we’ve ever had!

As for the vines themselves, they are stunning. They’re all wreathed in beautifully fresh and vivacious bright green leaves, thanks to the three days of rain which really gave them a boost this August.

The weather report is forecasting cooler temperatures over the next few days. It should drop around fifteen degrees Celsius, enabling us to finish the harvest under the best possible conditions.

Without a doubt, this means that we’ll have a truly exceptional vintage this year. We’re still awaiting a few samples however, so we can’t yet give you the characteristics of the 2015 vintage... I think we’ll have another 8 or 10 days before we can taste all the 100 to 200 samples of both the “primeur” wines and wines meant to be aged from the various sectors in the Beaujolais.

Unfortunately, while we are certain of great quality across the board, the yield per hectare may vary wildly from one plot to another, from one village to another, and from one appellation to another. This looks like it will be a “jealous” year, where some winemakers will boast a yield per appellation of 52hl per hectare and others will barely make 40hl. This could drop even lower for certain estates.

In the Pierres Dorées region, the home of most of the Beaujolais Nouveau production, the grape harvest started this week, and we’ve already tasted the first wines of 2015. This is always a highly anticipated moment, as it gives us our first glimpse into the expression and style of the new vintage. Unfortunately, however delightful and promising these first tastings may have been, we can’t use them as an absolute reference for the vintage as all of the samples we tasted are of course still undergoing fermentation.

We can tell you right now that the 2015 harvest is exceptional. Depending on the weather over the next few days, we could even reach the heights of the fabulous 2009 vintage; but of course, a vintage is always a reflection of that year and the grapes will continue to grow and develop until they are picked, crushed and fermented...

So let’s let time work its magic and the winemaker work his skills to turn these grapes into the finest possible wine for this magnificent vintage!

From Beaujolais with love,

Georges DUBOEUF The 31st of August 2015