26th of March
Quite a bit later than usual, we have started harvest with our first ripe block of pinot noir. The reason being a slow maturing season, which is positive as it enables to build up concentration slowly and obtain a nice natural balance.
The season has seen a very good flowering, with right weather at the time (no rain or cold temperature), then december and january were in between very wet at times and very dry at other times bringing in fact water at the right moments and sun and wind to dry the vines and help them grow. A tough work on canopy management and crop control has been done, with srtict shoot thining. But naturally the yields were not high this year, mother nature has been quite measured.
As a result, the fruit is absolutely beautiful, and the vineyard healthy.
The first block to be harvested is grown on clay soils. One of our main challenge this year has been to work on irrigation, controlling the exact needs in water of the vines and irrigating only when needed. In fact, we haven't had to irrigate the clay soils at all during this season, the plants have never shown any sufficient stress. This is for us a huge step in our learning curve about irrigation, next year we'll continue working on the subject.
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