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Chateau Haut-Brion - Jean-Philippe Delmas
Harvest
Chronicles at
Château Haut-Brion -
Pessac-Leognan-Graves
When all goes well the grapes benefit from the ideal ripening conditions which can assure a perfect maturation. The 2002
vintage at Chateau
Haut-Brion is no exception to this rule. The great Bordeaux
vintages always hail from very dry years. It is in these very
conditions that the 2002
vintage at
Haut-Brion was born. This year has been one of the driest that Bordeaux has ever known. The rather feeble precipitation was evenly distributed over the growing season, thus allowing the vine to benefit fully from this constancy of Mother Nature's irrigation. This consistency was also apparent in the temperatures even though the summer was cooler than usual which delayed the ripening of the grapes. All winemakers were worried at the beginning of September. Then suddenly we found ourselves benefiting from ideal weather conditions for a
harvest time. At
Haut-Brion we were blessed by relatively warm weather accompanied by very dry winds coming predominantly from the North and the East. The conditions became ideal
at
Haut-Brion and allowed our grapes to ripen without the moisture and
botrytis that can often threaten their state during the autumn season.
The surveillance of the grapes striving to achieve their zenith
of perfect maturation is given great significance. Such is the
case at
Haut-Brion. Every day we go into the
vineyards to
taste our grapes, first the skins and then the pips. There is nothing that can replace the sensory perception that has been acquired through years of experience. Only such a practised team, working in symbiosis, can attain and use this knowledge to judge the perfect moment for harvesting. Using this technique
at
Haut-Brion we decided to pick the whites between the 9th and the 17th of September, the
Merlots between the 19th and the 27th of September, the
Cabernet
Francs and
Sauvignons between the 30th of September and the 8th of October. All of these were harvested and brought to the vat rooms without a single drop of rain!
Today it is still difficult to judge the true quality of the
2002
vintage at
Haut-Brion. To date, the
tannic
structure of the first vats is very smooth and harmonious, the fruit is very present and the abundant tannins are both
soft and
ripe. The dry weather conditions provided rather small grapes containing little, though rather concentrated juice. The crop is small in size. This is especially and surprisingly true for the cabernets, which we had expected to produce a higher
yield than the merlots that had suffered from "coulure" in the spring. The over-all crop size is approximately 30% smaller than usual.
To summarise, I would say that we have, at
Haut-Brion very many promising indicators that lead us to believe that this will be another very good
vintage for our wines.
Jean-Philippe Delmas Chateau Haut-Brion
http://haut-brion.com/home/en/langflash-en.php
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