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WHAT´S NEW ? |
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| | 2006 Primum Familiae Vini Vintage Reports,
| | France
Château Mouton Rothschild – Pauillac (Bordeaux)
Temperatures during 2006 were significantly warmer than usual. With the notable exception of August, monthly temperatures from April to October were 1° to 4° C higher than the average.
Precipitation was highly irregular, giving aggregate rainfall of 626 mm by the end of October, slightly lower than the average of 685 mm.
The vines took full advantage of the sunny and hot conditions. The vegetation cycle gradually caught up after a slightly late budbreak and the crop was finally harvested a little earlier than usual. Picking began on 20 September with Merlot, followed by Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc and ending on 5 October with Petit Verdot.
The wines obtained at this stage show relatively marked contrasts between different parcels according to the age of the vines, their exposure and their access to reserves of groundwater. The best parts have produced rich wines with plenty of structure and excellent acidity.
2006 will thus be a very good year, in the tradition of the great Mouton classics.
Pol Roger – Epernay (Champagne)
What a fabulous year !
After a perfect month of May and June which did not disturb the flower.
After a very warm July
After a cool August
Here is September dry and sunny.
We started September 10th to finish around the 20th with a good weather, the rain arrived only at the end.
The chardonnay were perfect, the noir and meunier a little too matured, the sanitary aspect was from good to very good.
So in conclusion average degree 10°, good acidity, a little bit higher than 2005 which will give us a good option for a vintage… to be decided in January.
Joseph Drouhin – Beaune (Burgundy)
In 2006, Burgundy had to contend with unstable weather during the summer: hot and dry in July, cold and rainy in August.
The harvest took place during the second week of September, which is quite normal.
A careful sorting of the Pinot Noir grapes was necessary.
Now that they have finished their fermentation, the wines show nice fruit, a higher than average acidity level and a nice tannic structure.
The Chardonnay grapes had no problem ripening and just before picking showed even higher concentration of fruit.
The wines taste full on the palate and display very pleasant aromatic flavors.
Perrin & Fils – Orange (Rhone Valley)
The 2006 harvest started on Sept 5th at Beaucastel and ended on October 11th.
The particularity of 2006 was that after an usually warm and sunny month of July, we had an unusually cool month of August followed by an exceptionnaly sunny and warm month of september. Also we had more rain than in recent vintages (30mm on July 14th; 40 mm on August 15th...) which was systematically followed by some very strong mistral wind that kept the vines very healthy.
The result is that we have achieved a very good ripeness in all grape varities (including mourvèdre) with vines which did not suffer from the lack of water. All the grapes harvested were extremely healthy. The wines are consequently ripe and very balanced with a good acidity. We can already affirm that 2006 will be another great vintage in Châteauneuf-du-Pape.
Hugel & fils – Riquewihr (Alsace)
Our 2006 harvest came to an end on 19th October and, by an amazing coincidence, the last vineyard to be picked yielded exactly 1639 kilos of grapes, matching the year in which our family company was established twelve generations ago in 1639 !
2006 has been a year of great contrasts, but it will be remembered as a vintage where strict vineyard management and exemplary vinification skills were necessary to achieve success.
23mm of warm southerly rain fell on 17th September, which encouraged an explosion of unusually early "noble rot" in our own estate vineyards where bunches had been rigorously thinned out during green harvests earlier in the year. Picking in our contract vineyards started
on 27th September for all varietals except Riesling and Gewurztraminer which began a few days later.
In our family estates, perfect "Indian Summer" weather from 7th October enabled us to pick some fine late-harvest wines, including all 3 Vendange Tardives : Riesling (at 15% potential), Gewurztraminer (17%) and Pinot Gris (17.6%), as well as a splendid Riesling Sélection de Grains Nobles (more than 20%) that could not have been dreamed of three weeks earlier !
The average yield in our estate remained under 60 hl/ha.
Jean Hugel (82 and 58 vintages) describes 2006 as "a vintage of stark contrasts and agreeable surprises, which will highlight the quality of the finest vineyards and reward superior vinification skills".
Germany
Egon Muller Scharzhof –Saar
The growing season was marked by extremes. A hot and dry July was followed by a cool and wet August. The berries that had been very small grew considerably with the ample water supply.
September was warm and dry and the grapes ripened beautifully. The increased size of the berries led to pressure within the clusters and Botrytis started to spread. On September 30th however, a hailstorm ravaged some of the vineyards on the Saar, notably in Saarburg, Ockfen, Ayl and Oberemmel. In Wiltingen the braune Kupp vineyard escaped but there was considerable damage in the Scharzhofberg. During the following 2 days, 100 mm of rain fell and in the warm and wet conditions, Botrytis spread rapidly. Many growers rushed to harvest in panic.
We started picking on the 9th October after a couple of dry days and finished on the 23rd after 15 straight days of picking. In the beginning, must weights and yields were good but under blue skies, water rapidly evaporated and while the sugar levels soared, the yields came down. The last parcels we harvested were down to a mere 500 l/ha!
Like 2005, 2006 is marked by noble rot and extremely low yields. The acidity levels are lower however and because we were forced to harvest at extreme speed we could not select a host of Beeren- and Trockenbeerenauslese. There is a good quantity of beautiful Auslese and Spätlese and over all, this is probably more similar to 1999 or even 1949.
Italy
Antinori – Firenze (Tuscany)
Frequent rain in August on the Chianti Classico estates caused a delay in the ripening of the grapes. Consequently selection of the grapes for the Riserva wines only began in the last week of August, leaving the best bunches on the vines to allow perfect maturation of sugars and polyphenolic substances. Even Merlot, a precocious variety, was only harvested in the second and third weeks of September along with the grapes used for Vinsanto which were set aside for drying.
Between the end of September and the first week of October the Cabernet harvest began, followed by the Sangiovese harvest which ended in the second week of October.
The must obtained is generally intense in colour and aromas with pronounced varietal flavours. Thanks to the considerable polyphenolic structure, we look forward to well-balanced, subtle and elegant wines with mature tannins and full body.
Sassicaia – Tenuta San Guido (Bolgheri)
Climate during the year 2006 was quite irregular. Spring begun quite early with some rain. Then from mid June to the beginning of August the temperatures stayed much higher than the seasonal average. Instead during the month of August, temperatures dropped considerably, although in the region of Bolgheri it hardly ever rained. This allowed an optimal and healthy maturation of the grapes.
During the picking the weather stayed sunny and the grapes were consequently very rich and with a great structure.
This makes us believe that we will have an overall high quality vintage.
Portugal
The Symington Family Port Companies – Vila Nova de Gaia (Oporto and Douro)
2006 was an unusual year from an agricultural point of view, with a wet winter and a cool Spring causing a late fruit set, and then a period of unusually hot and dry weather in May. On 14th June a hailstorm crossed the prime area of the Douro at Pinhao, wiping out up to 30% of the crop in its direct path. Fortunately many of our vineyards upstream were spared.
A very hot and dry July managed to further reduce the crop, but fortunately some useful rain fell in mid August which avoided a disaster.
By early September the heat returned, and we started vintaging on the 11th September at our most Eastern vineyards with Baumes recording between 12 and 13.5 degrees.
Hurricane Gordon produced some rain mid-vintage but luckily did no major damage. Overall, at this stage we are confident that despite having produced some 15% lower yields than average, we have made some quite good wines in a difficult year.
Spain
Torres – Spain, Vilafranca del Penedes (Catalunya)
Despite heavy rain all over Catalonia on August 13-15 and September 14-16, grapes have been of high quality due to excellent growing conditions and the absence of disease. Exceptionally, we had a tornado that devastated 3 hectares of our vineyard in Borges Blanques (province of Lleida) - even our most senior staff had never witnessed anything like it.
In terms of temperatures, July was very hot but we had pleasant temperatures during August and September with cooler than usual nights. Harvesting started on August 16 with Muscat Frontignac grapes and finished on October 9 with Parellada and Cabernet Sauvignon. We think that it’s one of the best harvests in Catalonia in recent times.
The wines' good quality is a result of different factors: climate, improvements in grape quality control and a very well qualified professional viticulture and winemaking team (winemakers/assistant winemakers, biotechnologists, chemists, engineers, viticulturists and technicians). In terms of quality control, we have improved grape colour control methodology and as a result we have obtained better colour in more delicate varieties such as Red Grenache. We have also enlarged the list of pesticide residues (85) tested in grapes from our grape suppliers. As a result every year we have observed a decreased incidence of fruit containing residual pesticides. Grape ripeness control in the vineyard has also been improved with the aim of picking all the grapes at the optimum degree of maturity
Our philosophy is to invest time in our vineyards. Our team of winemakers monitors and tastes the developing ripeness of each vineyard, enabling us to decide on the quality of the grapes during harvest. Every decision in the vineyard (viticulture operations and new plantations) is agreed between the Technical and the Viticulture department.
Vega Sicilia – Valbuena de Duero (Castilla y Leon)
If we had to give a name to the 2006 vintage that would be the precociousness, being a continuity of the last vintages 2003 and 2005. The difference with 2006 one has to be searched a bit before, at sprout time. Very early sprouting without frosts, the consequence was no variation on the total number of days of the cycle. Although the cycle length remained the same, we can confirm a light movement towards the precociousness before mentioned, at sprouting as well as harvest time.
Continuing with the vineyards development, during the fertilization there were some wind (looser bunches) and some unusual cool and humid month of August. These conditions changed a the end of August and beginning of September, turning to a very hot weather, reaching record temperatures of 35-40 degrees, accelerating the ripening.
We started the harvest in Vega Sicilia on the 11th September with dry weather. The higher precociousness could be founded at the triangle Vega Sicilia- Penafiel- Pesquera (calcareous soils and low yields) in comparison with the rest of Ribera del Duero (clay soils and higher rainfall).
N.B: it is important to remark that the 24th June there was a hale storm in around 80% of the Ribera del Duero D.O., with different damaging effects but luckily enough it didn’t touch the Vega Sicilia terroirs. The damages were not extremely important but the wounds definitely influenced the good development and later ripening of the grapes.
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