Bordeaux 2015: The Harvest
The story of the 2015 growing season is a mixed one. First there was a long period of warm, dry and sunny weather. While advantageous in that this aided budbreak, flowering and through bringing a halt to vegetative growth in summer also the véraison, the drought was such that it at the very least influenced the manner in which the berries developed, and the vineyard managers were certainly worried about the lack of rain.
Having said that, it seems to me that despite some young vines having undoubtedly struggled in the dry heat, the best terroirs coped well. When I visited the region in October 2015 shortly after the harvest, ready to taste from the vats, many vineyards in many parts of Bordeaux still seemed lush and verdant. Some were, admittedly, giving way to the colours of Autumn (especially up in St Estèphe, as pictured below, and the northern Médoc), but key was the fact that they still retained their leaves. This was very different to the scenes late in the 2003 growing season, when the vines in many parts were already bare, the leaves having wilted and dropped in the heat-wave.
Subsequently, after this prolonged period of dry weather, there were several months of rain. When speaking of these rains many in Bordeaux feel that the August rains were very beneficial, breathing new life into tired vines. The September rains were less useful, and of course rain in September and October had the potential to interfere with the harvest of both the white and the red varieties.
Bordeaux 2015: The Dry Whites
On the whole the Sauvignon Blanc harvest kicked off during the dry weather at the start of September, although there were a few exceptions to this generalisation. Some domaines sent out pickers in the dying dog-days of August. Château d’Yquem began picking their Sauvignon Blanc for the dry wine, Ygrec, at this time. Château Carbonnieux, often one of the first (if not the very first) to pick (a fact which certainly comes through in the style of the wines), also sent their harvest team out before the end of August, on the 27th.
