2024 harvest

Here, there... Here, yes. An exceptional sorting effort, everything in the buckets has to be spotless... Above all, don’t forget anything! Careful, some grapes were forgotten here. Remove the leaves to see, because many places... still have lots of bunches low down. They’re more careful with unripe grapes. Usually, there are fewer. We’ll put it on the other one perhaps, OK?... Really sunburnt… and there aren’t many bunches. There weren’t many to begin with, and now… We can't keep even half of the bunch! What can I say about the 2024 vintage? First of all, it’s been a very, very difficult year... in terms of working the soil, treatments, and canopy management. We had a great deal of rain. It made mechanical operations much more challenging than usual. Lots of weeds, we had lots of weeds. That meant mowing, brush cutting... or plowing when possible. In short, very tough working the soil. So, it’s been a really unusual year... this is my 24th harvest, Out of those 24 harvests, this one was ... one of the most challenging vintages. The yields are extremely low, a great deal lower than last year... Despite that, after sorting, we still manage to obtain good grapes, but we spend an insane amount of time sorting. We need as many people as we would in a normal year. We spend just as much time as for a normal year, but only get a fraction of the yield as a result. The vineyard work itself has been tough, and the harvest is costing us a lot more. It’s also been much harder to get the pickers to understand... that they need to sort thoroughly. So it’s been a lot more work than for a normal harvest... Luckily, our team is large enough this year, so that's been perfect. They've also been doing an incredible job of sorting while picking. It's a huge effort, on some plots, every single bunch needed sorting. If we want to produce good quality, almost every bunch needs reworking... A few plots have fared a bit better than others this year. Given all the rain we had, the plots with stonier soils... or steeper slopes, drained much better. The vines absorbed less water, and situation is looking better concerning diseases, and concerning the fruit. Otherwise, it's true... What more can I say, not much... other than hopefully we won't see another year like this one! The final quality will still be nice, but the volume will be small... It’s a huge amount of work to produce quality grapes, Thankfully we’ll still have a good harvest on some plots. Looking down the rows, we can still see some grapes here and there. There are areas where there are fewer of course. Right now, we’re on a premier cru plot in Gevrey-Chambertin, where there are still some decent bunches hanging. It’s not the usual yields, but we’re not going to complain compared to some other plots. We’ll wait and see how the vinification process goes. There’s no reason it shouldn’t go well. But it’s going to be quicker because there are fewer vats... It’s been a much more demanding year, for a much smaller harvest... It’s been a bit hard on our morale, but it is what it is. We just hope next year will be a great one! I’ll keep this simple: this year was very unusual. Not much fruit, and in poor condition in many areas. On the other hand, we had an absolutely fantastic team of pickers! They stuck it out to the very end... The sorting was done exceptionally well. It was tough for everyone... And quite frankly, I’m really pleased! Firstly, because of the picker teams, and secondly, because the cooks treated them so well, and who also did a remarkable job. It's really been one of the best years in terms of atmosphere,0 smiles all around, great food, and good vibes, it was fantastic!