Bordeaux 2014: Summer
Although the weather during May was perhaps not ideal, the year through to the end of June had, on the whole, been a near-perfect start to the growing season. And on paper (looking at the data from the weather station at Mérignac) July doesn’t look to have been too bad either, with many weather data for the month quite close to average across the board. The average daily high and low temperatures, at 26.1ºC and 16.6ºC respectively, were really quite similar to the thirty-year averages of 26.9ºC and 15.8ºC. And the total rainfall for the month, at 50.8 mm, coming in scattered showery days throughout the month, was almost an exact match for the average of 49.9 mm. So too the hours of sunshine were close to the expected ‘norm’, with 243.4 hours in July 2014 versus a ten-year average of 248.5 hours.
These data barely scrape the surface of July though. As was also the case in the Loire Valley, this was a difficult month. The very persistent nature of the rain, with frequent drizzly days rather than just one or two downpours, keeps the soil moist and allows the water to soak in and reach the vines roots. The constant humidity also increases the disease pressure, and frequent treatments may be required (which are then washed off by the next day’s rain, and so need reapplying, and so on). In addition, some regions saw much heavier rainfall than the 50.8 mm noted here (which I have used to generalise for all Bordeaux, but the data comes from the airport weather station far from most of the region’s vineyards). Some parts of Bordeaux saw more than double this figure, sometimes more than three times in fact. Some performed a green harvest at this time, partly because as already noted the flowering was not perfect everywhere, but also to reduce the vines’ swollen load, and to help them carry and ripen the fruit through what was suddenly looking like a less inspiring growing season. Others, of course, did a green harvest simply because it was that time of year; strange though it may seem, some estates do work by rote, rather than responding to the needs of the growing season.
Please log in to continue reading: