Harvest of our Hill site - Lone Tree block

We have begun the harvest of the hill site blocks, starting with Lone Tree, a block of pinot noir. Another hard day of hand harvest on this block which is located at the far end and highest end of the hill.

Fantastic fruit, smaller bunches. The fruit seem to struggle a bit more on the hill, due to the high wind exposition and the higher water evaporation.

Focus on the fruit

We've harvested some more pinot noir, this time from our Riverbed soils - a block called Grave, clone 10/5, that will essentially enter in the final blend of the Bel Echo pinot noir.












We are nicely surprised by the balance, and are satisfied to see that our focus this year in the vineyard to obtain less alcohol has succeeded. After a visit of our viticulturist consultant from France in November, Francois Dale, we began to work on reducing the vigour, or more precisely finding the right balance between too much and not enough vigour, with the intent to reduce our alcohols. This results in potential degrees of 13 to 13.5%, which is what we were aiming for.



This week again, our viticulturist consultant this time from NZ, David Jordan, has come to check on the maturity of the grapes with our team and the family, as well as to see the sanitary status of our grapes. It was very good to hear from him that our vineyard is absolutely healthy, when some part of the valley have been touch by botrytis due to the rainy month of february. The important for us being to continue progressing in our learning curve in our vineyard.


"In the winery, it is a real pleasure to play with such a beautiful harvest", these are the words of Lionel and Jean-Christophe Bourgeois, who would dream to have such pinot noir in Sancerre. And Lionel adds with his legendary smile: "Days like this, we understand why we came to establish our vineyard on the other side of world in NZ!"

25th of March - first Sauvignon Blanc harvested!

End of the day at the winery...

Today, after harvesting some more pinot noir this morning from our block called Kaki clones 114 115. We continued this afternoon with our first sauvignon Blanc coming from our block called Petit pierre, from our riverbed soils.

Few more pictures from the winery today, and we'll focus a bit more on the vineyard tomorrow.

We are actually very satisfied with the sanitary state of our grapes. With a rainy month of february, once again our work on low yields proves us right, as botrytis and rot are absent from our fruit. We'll give you more information on this tomorrow, with photo proofs !

The tractor is coming straight from the vineyard to the winery, a great improvement for us as the fruits are taken care of immediately after picking.

In no time, the grapes get into the press.

And first grapes in our new winery...

Today is also a new step in the development of Clos Henri. After a long year of intense work for the Bourgeois family, our winameker Damien Yvon and our Admnistration manager Chrissie Wilson, our winery has opened its doors to the first harvest. First fruits are in!

Harvest 2009 on the starting blocs!

We have started the harvest 2009 this morning, with our block called Nicolas. Block of pinot noir from the plain site of our vineyard on the terroir of clay.