Chablis Domaine Bernard Defaix Wine

The domaine will be closed from the 14th till the 29th of August. We will be back on Monday 30th.

26 juillet 2010

A rather late season

After a rigourous winter, the spring has been gloomy. The flowering began around the 10th of June (which is very late) and spread out almost 15 days because of the rainy and cool weather. So we are waiting for a late harvest, not before the 20th of September.

At the end of June, beginning of July, the high temperatures were higher than 30°C and some people were thinking about a possible scorching summer like 2003.
But, from mid July, cool and rainy periods have occured again. In Rully for example, the pluviometry between the 12th and the 22nd of July has reached 110 mm; it is the equivalent of more than 2 normal months in summer. Fortunately, these important rainfalls did not cause major damages. But the follow-up of the vineyard in organic farming was very difficult on this context, requiring more frequent interventions and an even more precise work in terms of aeration of the vegetation, control of the vigour,...

5th of May 2010

Temperatures up and down in the vineyard

The rather rigorous winter has perturbed a bit the work in the vineyard. The cold temperatures and the snow obliged us to stop pruning several times. Indeed, the cold when entering the pruning wounds, can increase the death rate of the vines stocks.

The biomass boiler has been installed during the coldest period. It is working well after a period of meticulous adjustments. Now we have to evaluate the quantity of vineshoots we need to feed the boiler for one year.

After this long and cold winter, the fantastic weather and high temperatures that arrived at mid-April were more than welcome. The vegetation has started to grow quickly. A short respite as the cold is back now since several days. No spring frost for the moment (we keep our fingers crossed) thanks notably to the layer of clouds that limits the drop of temperatures at the end of the night.

In the cellar, the vintage 09 confirms our first feeling: it is really on the same style than 08. One difference to note yet on the winemaking: the malolactic fermentation have been very quick on vintage 09 compared to the previous vintages. So we have made the first racking a bit earlier than usual and we have kept the fine lees for the structure.

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