Bordeaux 2011: The Harvest
Of course by the time of my visit in October all the fruit had long been picked. The white grapes started coming in on August 17th. The reds followed, with Merlot on September 5th and the Cabernets beginning on September 12th (at least this is the ‘official’ line – some St Estèphe estate were out earlier than these dates for both Merlots and Cabernets), and most had been gathered in by the start of October. During this time the greatest difficulty was with the Cabernets. Christian Seely (pictured) at Château Pichon-Baron explained to me the critical difference between the varieties here; the earlier picked Merlots did not have to endure the September sunshine, but while the Cabernets slowly plodded their way towards physiological ripeness the berries – exposed by the summer deleafing – shrivelled under the unusually warm conditions.
The fruit dehydrated, yields were reduced (just 20 hl/ha in places), the skins thickened and with the shrinking berries the tannin-to-juice ratio climbed prodigiously. Unusually for an early harvest, as Paul Pontallier at Château Margaux explained, the acidities remained high. Early harvests such (as in 2011) tend to be associated with super-warm vintages (such as 2003), but here the warmth all came in spring and autumn, and the cooler summer preserved much of the acidity in the fruit, and thus wines maintain a sense of freshness. So although this is an early-harvest vintage, it definitely does not have the warm, roasted flavours of an early vintage like those that can be found in the wines of 2003.
The Merlots, perhaps because they were picked without suffering the later dehydration and without the ripening rays of the September sun, generally have lower sugar levels than that seen in 2010 and 2009. That personally pleases me, as despite the reputations of these two vintages I have found more than a handful of Merlot-based wines with rather warm alcoholic backbones in recent years. The Cabernets, however, are a different kettle of fish. Following the September dehydration these were harvested with similar tannin and acidity levels to 2010, a superb vintage, but without the accompanying texture and sweetness of flesh.
