Bordeaux 2016 Primeurs: Sauternes & Barsac
It should be clear by now that the weather across the Bordeaux region was fairly homogenous during the course of the year. Until late June it was wet and miserable, everywhere, from St Estèphe to St Emilion. Then from the closing days of June right through to November it was very warm and dry, again everywhere. These were, of course, excellent conditions for ripening the red grapes.
So what of Sauternes? Dry conditions are not favourable for the development of botrytis. By September the grapes were perfectly ripe (and in Graves and Pessac-Léognan the harvest of the white grapes for the dry wines was well underway). There was no sign of any botrytis though, but of course autumn was not completely dry, as there was rain in mid-September. These were the rains which freshened up the vines across the entire Bordeaux region, freeing them from blocage, facilitating the ripening of the Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon. And these same rains also saved the day in Sauternes and Barsac, although by a rather different mechanism. The first rains arrived on September 13th, and this prompted a little wave of botrytis and the first flurry of picking. What came in was partly lightly botrytised fruit, and partly clean fruit dehydrated by passerillage, essentially raisining on the vine. But at least it was a start.
Thereafter the skies cleared, and by the next day the weather was warm and dry once more. This helped to concentrate what fruit had been botrytised, but it soon hindered things once again. The situation remained the same for two weeks, until September 30th, when there was more rainfall, a much more convincing downpour this time. Picking began once again, specially in Barsac, and on some lesser Sauternes vineyards. The noble rot on the better sites developed more slowly, particularly because the temperatures were sliding downwards now, as October arrived, and the cooler the weather the less rampant the botrytis will be. It was only after a third period of rainfall on October 10th followed by a few days of higher humidity that the botrytis really took hold on the top terroirs. This led to a prolonged period of picking, lasting more than a week, starting on October 17th and not finishing until October 25th. This third tri was a very significant one, bringing in the majority of the harvest (up to 75% of the crop on some estates). The success of the vintage was assured.
