What if biodynamic viticulture brought us closer to our terroir? Two hundred years after Major General Charles Palmer acquired the estate, the 2014 vintage provides a simple answer to this question: its energy beautifully welcomes ageing while releasing fruitiness and minerality.
Early in the summer, the sun had played an endless game of hide-and-go-seek. But when the harvest ended on October 14, it was under the same glorious sun that we had enjoyed throughout September. Everything had started quite well; a rainy winter had enabled the estate to renew its water reserves. In the spring, flowering went well. But early July, the weather became unstable and the vines focused on their fine foliage – to the detriment of their grapes. August wasn’t much better, ripening was slow and the berries began to swell…
Luckily, the sun finally returned at the end of the month. September’s extraordinary weather conditions transformed the vintage profile. As berry size decreased, levels of sugars, anthocyanins, and tannins increase. On September 22, we harvested the first plot, and the particularly good weather allowed us to pick perfectly ripe grapes. In the cellar, innovation was firmly in the spotlight. After two years of experiments seeking to reduce the level of sulfur in our wines, we decided not to add any sulfur to the harvested grapes to let them immediately express their complexity.
At this stage, the wines of the 2014 vintage are an excellent reflection of the diversity of the estate’s plots. Each personality is expressed in these two assemblages as if a veil had been lifted. It is, without a doubt, one of the first results of our biodynamic approach.
