Millesime 2012
The vintages follow one another... and do not resemble one another. 2012 will have spared us nothing from its bad weather, with frost, hail, freshness at flowering and frequent rainy episodes. It took a lot, a lot of work in the vineyard, but what a year: the winemaker's year par excellence!
The month of March was nevertheless marked by high temperatures and beautiful sunshine, favouring the bud bursting with a certain advance, but the months of April and May came to slow down this rhythm by very cool temperatures, sometimes even frost, with harsh weather conditions.
On April 17th, the buds (still in cotton) were hit by a wave of frost on our alluvial soils on the edge of Vienne.
In mid-May, a certain heterogeneity was settling in the vines, and the first spots of mildew appeared at the end of the month... We had to maintain an irreproachable protection of the vineyard, by speeding up the rates of treatment (intervene often, but at very low doses, to follow the growth of the vine which was done in a brutal way) ; we criss-crossed our vines no less than 14 times, applying only contact products (copper and sulphur - non-penetrating, non-systemic), which settle on the surface of the leaf to prevent the development of diseases.
Then it was a hail bank coming up the Loire from the west that crossed the Clos de la Plante Martin on 30 May, before partly crossing the Cabernet Franc vines of the Plateau de Beaumont-en-Véron and the Clos du Chêne Vert.
As a result, flowering lasted almost three weeks and ended on June 26th.
The vintage looked complicated, and the months of June and July confirmed this with rainy spells every week, making access to the vines difficult or even impossible at times. Contrary to 2011, when we had kept the leaves of our grapes protected during a particularly sunny spring and early summer, in 2012, we thinned out the leaves in the whole vineyard to improve the exposure of the grapes to the sun and above all to favour the aeration and drying of the bunches and preserve the aromas.
Fortunately, on August 10th, a nice dry and sunny weather settled in and the atmosphere changed until mid-September, offering the winegrowers (at last!) the chance to enjoy the best of the vintage.) the possibility to serenely intervene in the vineyard to homogenize and loosen up the bunches at the end of August and the beginning of September by green harvesting - which was nothing classic, because it was not a question here of reducing the announced abundance of the harvest (the expected yields were already very low), but of homogenizing the maturities (a pre-sorting, so to speak).
The rainy spells at the end of September were easily absorbed by the soils worked throughout the year and we were able to wait patiently for the grapes to ripen, even though we knew that we would have to sort a lot to keep only the best...
On October 10th, we opened the harvest with the very pretty Chenin Blanc from Clos de la Plante Martin, with a very small yield of 20 hectolitres/hectare (hl/ha).
Then on October 16th, it was the turn of the Cabernet Franc from the alluvial soils, followed on the 19th by the Clos du Chêne Vert.
After a short break of three days to let a rainy episode pass, we could continue the harvest under a beautiful sun, and on October 22nd the pickers went through the Clos de la Cure, on October 23rd through Les Varennes du Grand Clos and the Clos de la Dioterie, and finally, on October 24th, through Les Charmes.
After a draconian sorting in the vines (long live the manual harvest!) and on our sorting table in the cellar to keep only the ripe and healthy berries, the 2012 vintage offers us a very small harvest: 20 hl/ha for the Chenin Blanc and 30 hl/ha for the Cabernet Franc.
The month of March was nevertheless marked by high temperatures and beautiful sunshine, favouring the bud bursting with a certain advance, but the months of April and May came to slow down this rhythm by very cool temperatures, sometimes even frost, with harsh weather conditions.
On April 17th, the buds (still in cotton) were hit by a wave of frost on our alluvial soils on the edge of Vienne.
In mid-May, a certain heterogeneity was settling in the vines, and the first spots of mildew appeared at the end of the month... We had to maintain an irreproachable protection of the vineyard, by speeding up the rates of treatment (intervene often, but at very low doses, to follow the growth of the vine which was done in a brutal way) ; we criss-crossed our vines no less than 14 times, applying only contact products (copper and sulphur - non-penetrating, non-systemic), which settle on the surface of the leaf to prevent the development of diseases.
Then it was a hail bank coming up the Loire from the west that crossed the Clos de la Plante Martin on 30 May, before partly crossing the Cabernet Franc vines of the Plateau de Beaumont-en-Véron and the Clos du Chêne Vert.
As a result, flowering lasted almost three weeks and ended on June 26th.
The vintage looked complicated, and the months of June and July confirmed this with rainy spells every week, making access to the vines difficult or even impossible at times. Contrary to 2011, when we had kept the leaves of our grapes protected during a particularly sunny spring and early summer, in 2012, we thinned out the leaves in the whole vineyard to improve the exposure of the grapes to the sun and above all to favour the aeration and drying of the bunches and preserve the aromas.
Fortunately, on August 10th, a nice dry and sunny weather settled in and the atmosphere changed until mid-September, offering the winegrowers (at last!) the chance to enjoy the best of the vintage.) the possibility to serenely intervene in the vineyard to homogenize and loosen up the bunches at the end of August and the beginning of September by green harvesting - which was nothing classic, because it was not a question here of reducing the announced abundance of the harvest (the expected yields were already very low), but of homogenizing the maturities (a pre-sorting, so to speak).
The rainy spells at the end of September were easily absorbed by the soils worked throughout the year and we were able to wait patiently for the grapes to ripen, even though we knew that we would have to sort a lot to keep only the best...
On October 10th, we opened the harvest with the very pretty Chenin Blanc from Clos de la Plante Martin, with a very small yield of 20 hectolitres/hectare (hl/ha).
Then on October 16th, it was the turn of the Cabernet Franc from the alluvial soils, followed on the 19th by the Clos du Chêne Vert.
After a short break of three days to let a rainy episode pass, we could continue the harvest under a beautiful sun, and on October 22nd the pickers went through the Clos de la Cure, on October 23rd through Les Varennes du Grand Clos and the Clos de la Dioterie, and finally, on October 24th, through Les Charmes.
After a draconian sorting in the vines (long live the manual harvest!) and on our sorting table in the cellar to keep only the ripe and healthy berries, the 2012 vintage offers us a very small harvest: 20 hl/ha for the Chenin Blanc and 30 hl/ha for the Cabernet Franc.