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Chateau Haut-Brion - Jean-Philippe Delmas
Harvest
Chronicles at
Château Haut-Brion
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Pessac-Leognan-Graves
August has been a truly exceptional month.
In
the Haut-Brion meteorological records and in the memories of the Bordelais we have never experienced a heat wave with such consistently high temperatures over such a long period of time.
Chateau
Haut-Brion August 2nd
The weather station registered 36.3°C/ 97°F. On August 3rd the temperature rose to 39°C/102.2°F. August 4th the temperature soared past 40°C/104°F to reach 40.6°C/105°F. Then August 5th a new record was made when the thermometer hit 40.7°C/105.3°F. Between the 2nd and 13th of August the temperatures
at Chateau
Haut-Brion always rose above 35°C/95°F with 4 days topping 40°C/104°F on the 4th, 5th, 12th, and 13th. During the first two weeks in August the average temperature for 24 hours was 29°C/84.2°F. All of Europe experienced a heat wave never before encountered.
Wednesday August 13th 2003: Start of the vendanges of Chateau
Haut-Brion white wine.
Definitely an historic occasion!
One must go back to 1893 at
Haut-Brion to find a trace of such an early vendange. The flowering of the vines was one or two weeks in advance this year according to the different cepages. We knew from June on that we would have to return early from our summer vacations! But this was without taking into account the unusual heat wave that ensued at the beginning of August. It accelerated the ripening of the grapes and obliged us to begin picking the white grapes one month earlier than last year.
At Haut-Brion, because of the heat we had to take special precautions. The picking began at sunrise and ended midday in order to bring in the grapes during the coolest moments of the day. We also had to replace our usual tractors and trailers with refrigerated trucks to transport the
harvest back to the chais. Confronted with such exceptional climatic conditions we took,
at Haut-Brion, exceptional measures to meet the challenge.
Tuesday August 19th 2003: Start of the harvesting for our red wine at La Mission
Haut-Brion.
We finished the vendange of the last white Sémillon grapes of Chateau Laville Haut-Brion in the morning. We then went on to
harvest the younger parcels of
Merlot grapes which had attained perfect maturity. Referring as far back as all our archives go, this early start was an historic occasion!
It is too soon to know if these exceptional conditions will produce an exceptional
vintage at Haut-Brion.
However, the great years of the past were in general
vintages that were harvested early. Therefore we are very
optimistic.
Jean-Philippe Delmas
Chateau
Haut-Brion
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