|
Vintage 2003
Article Posted: Friday August 1st
Article last updated on: Friday August 1st
Vintage 2003 France is enjoying a long hot summer. The vines look very healthy and vignerons are beginning to count in their head the big fortune they might make this year.
But it is only August and in the next few weeks storms could break up this dry spell. If nothing untoward happens the harvest will be early.
The growing season started with anomalies, Bordeaux was three weeks in advance of Provence in April. That is something I have not experienced before. In the past I have left the south east to go to Bordeaux. The vines around me are usually sprouting the first shoots and leaves are appearing. This year when I left in early April to attend the Union des Grand Crus tastings of the 2002 vintage my local vines were bare. Yet in the Medoc there were big shoots and lots of leaves. Tradition has it that in the Bordeaux region the first chateau to start picking is the fabulous Haut Brion. They usually start in September. One has wondered in the past if this is not just a photo opportunity and that after the first pix they stop picking. It matters not as the wine is always excellent. I am off to tramp the vinyards and chat to the winemakers.
|
