The sun is still beating down this Tuesday, September 6, with temperatures exceeding 30°C in Libourne in Gironde, and the pickers busy in the rows of Château Bonalgue, owned by the Bourotte family in the Pomerol appellation, are very hot. A team of around 40 people collects the precious berries, performing a first sorting on the vines. With 40 hectares at PomerolLalande de Pomerol and Lussac, the Bourotte vineyards produce 200,000 bottles a year.
After a summer marked by strong heat, the harvest for dry white wines and crémants began on August 16, specifies the interprofessional council of Bordeaux wines, and on August 26, for rosés. For red wines, they started on September 1 for the Merlot grape variety, the earliest, which represents 15 to 20 days in advance. At Château Bonalgue, the harvest of the youngest Merlot vines (less than ten years old) started on September 5. “For me, who has been working for 17 years, this is the earliest harvest,” explains Mathieu Bonté, technical director of the vineyards. I had never harvested on reds at that time”.
Avoid a “heavy” wine
Jean-Baptiste Bourotte remembers the early harvest that followed the 2003 heat wave. “We didn’t have the same vision at the time,” he recalls. We wanted to push the date of the harvest a little and we made wines that were a little heavier. Today in the Bourotte vineyards, more work is done on the rooting of the vines and the plants are no longer stripped of their leaves, which exposed them all the more to the heat. “All the analyzes say it’s good: the pips are ripe, the pH is good and, when tasted, it’s fresh and pleasant,” explains the owner. We are not in the overmaturity so we have to get started! »
Tastings of berries, analyzes and debates on their results were multiplied at the end of this very hot summer. “We have a nice balance, welcomes Mathieu Bonté. If we rely on the first analyses, we would be around 14 degrees, which is reasonable for a year like this. It is therefore ultimately a good vintage that is taking shape despite the lack of water. “We have the feeling of being in a vintage fairly representative of the good vintages of the last five years, apart from 2021 which had a particular profile, that is to say sunny and warm”, comments Jean-Baptiste Bourotte.
To optimize the sorting of the picked grapes, the Bourotte vineyards have equipped themselves with a machine that sorts the berries by density. “The dried berries that bring a taste of currants, which we do not want, are discarded and we keep the whole berries very full and very ripe”, sums up the owner.
A lower yield
Due to water stress, the yield expected this year on this property, as in the majority of Gironde vineyards, will be a little low. The clusters are generally smaller “this will give things a little concentrated, a little round”, nuance Mathieu Bonté. While the appellation allows 55 hectoliters per hectare, Bourotte vineyards expect yields of between 30 and 40 hectoliters per hectare, depending on the estate.
Jean-Baptiste Bourotte relativizes, believing that “stress is part of the job”. He remembers his concern, in a Bordeaux region usually subject to a lot of rain, of the development of botrytis (fungus). This hasn’t been the case for five years, but frost, hail and heat waves have taken over… In mid-October, we will be definitively set on the quality of the 2022 vintage. Until then, the vinification work on these wines guard will continue in the cellars, sheltered from bad weather.