VINTAGE 2014:
Rising from the ashes, but everyone's talking drosophila suzukii and
acetic acid
Talking to vignerons after the harvest, the mood was generally quite good…but a lot of the happiness was fueled by a sentiment of having come from a long way down. In early August, the mood had been very glum and some vignerons thought they might not harvest at all in 2014.
After a miserable July and first weeks of August in France (cool and damp), the weather finally turned nice and stayed that way in most of France through the harvest - though not so much in the Languedoc and the Rhone which suffered heavy rains in late September. Quantities are good, especially compared to the last few vintages in France.
The fact that the grapes did ripen and that there was a harvest of reasonable quantity was more than enough to make the vignerons happy with 2014.
A brief summary of certain regions…
Champagne: looks to be a good to very good year, but it depends...
Cédric Bouchard described the vintage as "extraordinary, the best of the last 20, maybe even 30 or 40 years, with acidity, sugar, and yields."
However Jérôme Prévost was more cautious, "I am not sure that 2014 is the great year about which everyone is speaking. Even on the same vine, there were often disparate maturities of the bunches, in spite of good flowering."
Conditions in the Marne seem to have been more difficult where the Meunier had problems arriving at maturity, was attacked by Drosophila Suzukii with acetic acid following. (More on that later)
According to two vignerons, Moët did not harvest a parcel of 20 ha in AY because the vineyards stank so of vinegar they did not even enter them.
The piqure acetique (acescence) was fairly widespread - a very rare phenomenon. According to one vigneron, he had not seen such widespread piqure in decades. The Meunier and Pinot Noir were affected, not the Chardonnay. There were also incidences of grey rot, and it was important to harvest quickly because the rot spread fast once the grapes were ripe and bunches left in the vineyard quickly started to smell of vinegar.
The official ‘put-on-a-happy-face’ report from the Comité Interprofessional is that "it promises to be a very good year. The humidity led to some rot, but because of abundant quantities it was possible to throw away unhealthy fruit. Most of the harvest took place in good weather and most producers look and sound very happy."
The CIVC kept prices high for grapes this year and maximum permitted yields relatively low (for champagne), which meant that growers could afford to discard fruit.
LOIRE: General happiness. Vignerons were glum over the summer and then the weather turned sunny just in time and stayed that way in most of the region through the end of the harvest.
From a Muscadet producer : "we benefited from incredible weather with very good maturity of the grapes. Perfectly healthy, the conditions seem to be in place for a very successful vintage. With the sun and dry weather, there was some concentration in the grapes and yields are slightly below a normal year.
Saumur: "The Chenin is clean and aromatic."
Bourgeuil : "Superb. After a lousy month of August, September was warm and we harvested grapes in early October at 11.8° to 13° according to the parcels. I have never seen degrees like that.”
Touraine : "nothing but happiness with rich and clean grapes. I wouldn't have bet a centime in August on having such a good vintage.”
SAVOIE: warm and humid weather after veraison meant fragile, thin skins with a danger of rot plus the drosophila Suzukii which was first sighted in the Alps in 2008 and proliferated this year after a mild winter did nothing to reduce the population.
JURA: a very difficult vintage because there was too much rain from July 2 to August 15. In early October the grapes were still healthy, but only at 10.5°. Growers had to choose between harvesting before complete ripeness or risk leaving the grapes hanging in delicate conditions. Quantity was good which allowed selection of good fruit in the vineyards.
BURGUNDY: Overall, it seems to be an almost normal-sized harvest. Most growers are pleased with the quality, certainly much better than the past two years. There were some problems with piqure and rot, so it was important to do a selection of the grapes at harvest, but the yields were high enough that growers could afford to do so. During the summer there were damaging hail storms centered on Pommard, Meursault and Beaune, which had disastrous effects for those hit.
MACONNAIS: the harvest took place with great weather, good maturation and healthy grapes. It was the cleanest vintage since 2005 and similar in quality to 2002, aromatic without the over-ripeness of that vintage.
BEAUJOLAIS: From France Gonzalvez' "Ravie, ravie, ravie ! for quantity as well as quality" to Jean-Marc Burgaud's more restrained "a very good vintage I think", growers in the Beaujolais seem very pleased with the harvest.
RHÔNE : a complicated vintage from north to south. There were reports that in some places in the southern Rhône 1/2 the crop was left on the ground. In the north, there was a lot of rain after the first week of September with an alternance of rain and sun. After the mild winter, Suzukii, which arrived in the region in 2008 attacking fruit trees, and first showed up in the vineyards two or three years ago, this year was present in force with a new generation every 10 days. It was impossible to treat against it as there is no effective approved insecticide. Piqure acetique was a problem.
In the south, it was dry most of the summer, but the rains arrived for the harvest, accompanied in some areas by hail.
PROVENCE was spared the heavy rains that fell in the Languedoc and the Rhone during the harvest. Conditions were mostly good, though odium fragilized the skins, allowing the drosophiles to attack the grapes with resulting piqure acetique. In spite of that, most domaines consider 2014 to be a very good vintage.
LANGUEDOC ROUSSILLON : The beginning of the year broke records for lack of rain. The grapes were slow to ripen and then heavy rains fell on September 28 with record precipitations around Montpellier (300mm in a few hours). During the maturation period, there were wide temperature swings between the day and the night which favored the development of aromas. Initial reports suggest that 2014 will be elegant and fresh.
BORDEAUX: perhaps "the vintage of the century”
Drosophila (fruit fly) lays eggs in fruits, liquefies the pulp and generates acid rot which smells of vinegar. In the past, this was mostly confined to fruit trees, but this year nearly all the vineyards of France were affected to a greater or lesser degree.
There was also a problem with mildew late in the season which burned the leaves and made it difficult for the vine to bring the grapes to maturity.
Drosophila suzukii (fruit fly) apparently has the capacity to lay its eggs in healthy grapes as opposed to the more common fruit fly (drosoplia melanogaster )which requires an opening in the grape skin (fragile skins from rain, odium, etc). The explosion in the population of the Suzukii this year was described by one entomologist as "a real fireworks display". His tests suggest that Suzukii is not solely responsible for the presence of acetic rot in 2014. He claims that "there are parcels were the losses amount to 90%, but that tests show that only 10-20% of the grapes contained Suzukii larvae. The other larvae were from the common fruit fly. He suggests that Suzukii is just an aggravating factor. With dry weather until late June, the grapes were rather small. With the rains of July and August they swelled rapidly, provoking cracks in the skin and allowing the fruit flies to enter.
After a miserable July and first weeks of August in France (cool and damp), the weather finally turned nice and stayed that way in most of France through the harvest - though not so much in the Languedoc and the Rhone which suffered heavy rains in late September. Quantities are good, especially compared to the last few vintages in France.
The fact that the grapes did ripen and that there was a harvest of reasonable quantity was more than enough to make the vignerons happy with 2014.
A brief summary of certain regions…
Champagne: looks to be a good to very good year, but it depends...
Cédric Bouchard described the vintage as "extraordinary, the best of the last 20, maybe even 30 or 40 years, with acidity, sugar, and yields."
However Jérôme Prévost was more cautious, "I am not sure that 2014 is the great year about which everyone is speaking. Even on the same vine, there were often disparate maturities of the bunches, in spite of good flowering."
Conditions in the Marne seem to have been more difficult where the Meunier had problems arriving at maturity, was attacked by Drosophila Suzukii with acetic acid following. (More on that later)
According to two vignerons, Moët did not harvest a parcel of 20 ha in AY because the vineyards stank so of vinegar they did not even enter them.
The piqure acetique (acescence) was fairly widespread - a very rare phenomenon. According to one vigneron, he had not seen such widespread piqure in decades. The Meunier and Pinot Noir were affected, not the Chardonnay. There were also incidences of grey rot, and it was important to harvest quickly because the rot spread fast once the grapes were ripe and bunches left in the vineyard quickly started to smell of vinegar.
The official ‘put-on-a-happy-face’ report from the Comité Interprofessional is that "it promises to be a very good year. The humidity led to some rot, but because of abundant quantities it was possible to throw away unhealthy fruit. Most of the harvest took place in good weather and most producers look and sound very happy."
The CIVC kept prices high for grapes this year and maximum permitted yields relatively low (for champagne), which meant that growers could afford to discard fruit.
LOIRE: General happiness. Vignerons were glum over the summer and then the weather turned sunny just in time and stayed that way in most of the region through the end of the harvest.
From a Muscadet producer : "we benefited from incredible weather with very good maturity of the grapes. Perfectly healthy, the conditions seem to be in place for a very successful vintage. With the sun and dry weather, there was some concentration in the grapes and yields are slightly below a normal year.
Saumur: "The Chenin is clean and aromatic."
Bourgeuil : "Superb. After a lousy month of August, September was warm and we harvested grapes in early October at 11.8° to 13° according to the parcels. I have never seen degrees like that.”
Touraine : "nothing but happiness with rich and clean grapes. I wouldn't have bet a centime in August on having such a good vintage.”
SAVOIE: warm and humid weather after veraison meant fragile, thin skins with a danger of rot plus the drosophila Suzukii which was first sighted in the Alps in 2008 and proliferated this year after a mild winter did nothing to reduce the population.
JURA: a very difficult vintage because there was too much rain from July 2 to August 15. In early October the grapes were still healthy, but only at 10.5°. Growers had to choose between harvesting before complete ripeness or risk leaving the grapes hanging in delicate conditions. Quantity was good which allowed selection of good fruit in the vineyards.
BURGUNDY: Overall, it seems to be an almost normal-sized harvest. Most growers are pleased with the quality, certainly much better than the past two years. There were some problems with piqure and rot, so it was important to do a selection of the grapes at harvest, but the yields were high enough that growers could afford to do so. During the summer there were damaging hail storms centered on Pommard, Meursault and Beaune, which had disastrous effects for those hit.
MACONNAIS: the harvest took place with great weather, good maturation and healthy grapes. It was the cleanest vintage since 2005 and similar in quality to 2002, aromatic without the over-ripeness of that vintage.
BEAUJOLAIS: From France Gonzalvez' "Ravie, ravie, ravie ! for quantity as well as quality" to Jean-Marc Burgaud's more restrained "a very good vintage I think", growers in the Beaujolais seem very pleased with the harvest.
RHÔNE : a complicated vintage from north to south. There were reports that in some places in the southern Rhône 1/2 the crop was left on the ground. In the north, there was a lot of rain after the first week of September with an alternance of rain and sun. After the mild winter, Suzukii, which arrived in the region in 2008 attacking fruit trees, and first showed up in the vineyards two or three years ago, this year was present in force with a new generation every 10 days. It was impossible to treat against it as there is no effective approved insecticide. Piqure acetique was a problem.
In the south, it was dry most of the summer, but the rains arrived for the harvest, accompanied in some areas by hail.
PROVENCE was spared the heavy rains that fell in the Languedoc and the Rhone during the harvest. Conditions were mostly good, though odium fragilized the skins, allowing the drosophiles to attack the grapes with resulting piqure acetique. In spite of that, most domaines consider 2014 to be a very good vintage.
LANGUEDOC ROUSSILLON : The beginning of the year broke records for lack of rain. The grapes were slow to ripen and then heavy rains fell on September 28 with record precipitations around Montpellier (300mm in a few hours). During the maturation period, there were wide temperature swings between the day and the night which favored the development of aromas. Initial reports suggest that 2014 will be elegant and fresh.
BORDEAUX: perhaps "the vintage of the century”
Drosophila (fruit fly) lays eggs in fruits, liquefies the pulp and generates acid rot which smells of vinegar. In the past, this was mostly confined to fruit trees, but this year nearly all the vineyards of France were affected to a greater or lesser degree.
There was also a problem with mildew late in the season which burned the leaves and made it difficult for the vine to bring the grapes to maturity.
Drosophila suzukii (fruit fly) apparently has the capacity to lay its eggs in healthy grapes as opposed to the more common fruit fly (drosoplia melanogaster )which requires an opening in the grape skin (fragile skins from rain, odium, etc). The explosion in the population of the Suzukii this year was described by one entomologist as "a real fireworks display". His tests suggest that Suzukii is not solely responsible for the presence of acetic rot in 2014. He claims that "there are parcels were the losses amount to 90%, but that tests show that only 10-20% of the grapes contained Suzukii larvae. The other larvae were from the common fruit fly. He suggests that Suzukii is just an aggravating factor. With dry weather until late June, the grapes were rather small. With the rains of July and August they swelled rapidly, provoking cracks in the skin and allowing the fruit flies to enter.
Drosophila has a preference for dark colored fruits and was much more of a problem for Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier in Burgundy and Champagne, than for Chardonnay. Among dark colored grapes, thin skinned varietals such as Meunier and Cinsault were more vulnerable than thicker skinned varieties.
Its presence also seems to have been more important mid slope (where the grapes ripen earlier) and on the bottom of slopes and in the plain where the yields are higher.
The presence of fruit trees near certain vineyards is also an explanation for the presence of drosophila in the vines. There were many problems this year with fruit flies for apricots, cherries, plums and strawberries, and in September, as those fruits were already harvested, there remained only grapes as prey for the drosophila.
Its presence also seems to have been more important mid slope (where the grapes ripen earlier) and on the bottom of slopes and in the plain where the yields are higher.
The presence of fruit trees near certain vineyards is also an explanation for the presence of drosophila in the vines. There were many problems this year with fruit flies for apricots, cherries, plums and strawberries, and in September, as those fruits were already harvested, there remained only grapes as prey for the drosophila.
Piqure acetique on a grape bunch
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