Weather-wise, it has been a roller-coaster year in Burgundy. Scorching heat in June, cool and rainy in July, better in August, with the harvest now due to start in about one week’s time. It’s anybody’s guess how 2011 will eventually turn out and I have never pretended to be one of those soothsayers who, with confidence unbounded, pronounce judgement on a vintage before hardly a grape is picked and then carve that judgement in stone. No wine region deserves to have a whole vintage pigeon-holed in such cavalier fashion and to do so in Burgundy is just plain stupid, so I am not about to try.

Harvesters in Chassagne-Montrachet, 23rd September 2010.

I will, however, travel there next week to report on the harvest at first hand. I will be re-tracing my footsteps from last year when I spent 10 days charging up and down the Côte d’Or with brief calls to a dozen or so winemakers to get their thoughts on the vintage. (It’s worth noting that this year I depart for Burgundy on 31st August, last year it was 22nd September.) Harvest is a magical time to visit, full of frantic activity in the vineyards and cellars, before the calm, ordered pace of life in the villages returns a few weeks later. I will be posting short reports and photos here as often as possible but will not, no matter what, be joining in any mad rush towards definitive, sweeping judgement – of the ‘vintage of the century’ sort.

Tags: Burgundy, Harvest