Harvest Report from Chateau Brane-Cantenac

Earlier this month I wrote up a mid-harvest report from Bordeaux. That report left off Chateau Brane-Cantenac. I now have their update, and it sounds like a great harvest:

The hot weather of July allowed the vine to catch up the week of lateness that the vine had accumulated since the flowering. On July 22nd we saw the first berries that changed color. The "mi-veraison" was around August 5th for the Merlots and around the 10th for Cabernets. A hot and extremely dry summer (just 37 mm of rain since June) caused a quick start of the ripening process last week.

Due to water deficit, millerandage and "coulure" phenomena, yields are expected to be very low. The sanitary conditions of the grapes are perfect! No presence whatsoever of Mildew was been observed in the vineyard.

Berries are smaller than previous years, and the sugar levels have considerably gone up, they are even higher than in 2009 on the same dates.

For the moment, and based on the dates of mi-veraison we can predict the beginning of the harvest around the last week of September.