BriO de Cantenac Brown

So, the nature was on our side. As the spring was quite dry, the budburst came slowly. Beginning of June, the flowering came in good conditions for the 3 grapesorts. The véraison started on July 22 for the Merlot. The Cabernet started 6 days after. The exceptional weather in the last two months of summer allowed a perfect maturity.

Everything has been done to obtain perfectly sound grapes with the best maturity: Leaf pruning, green harvest throughout the vineyard. We have been working the soils for several years now, and we have noted that it is impor- tant to let the grass develop at the end of the season. This cover limits the water absorption by the vines when there are late rains. It is certainly one of the reasons that led to our best results in 2006. Work and knowledge of the vineyard always make the difference; this is even truer this year. 2006 has been a precision harvest.

The 2007 Vintage is memorable due to an early flowering. Merlots matured very early, but because of harsh weather, the flowering was continued longer than normal. However, the Cabernets matured beautifully. Due to lack of sunny days and dry weather, we had to work harder than usual in the vineyard in order to ensure early pruning of the vines. We had to combat the lack of sunlight in the vineyards.

The burburst has been very slow due to the cool temperatures and the rains during the whole month of April. We have had to wait until beginning of May, with the first 10 sunny days, to see a fast shoot. The flowering started 8 to 10 days later than usual. The cool temperatures during the Merlots’ flowering and the warm ones during the Cabernets made it so that there is little difference between the two grape varieties. The véraison has been slow.

The budburst is fast and spreads over the first two weeks of April. The flowering of Merlots and Cabernets Sauvi- gnons is rapidly taking place in late May with some very good weather conditions. The « Véraison » starts on July 24th for the Merlots and July 31st for the Cabernets. The months of August, September and October are truly exceptional. The temperatures differences during days and nights are often important with cool nights and hot days, perfect for a good maturity.

The 2010 growing season was marked by dry weather all over the region. Winter to summer was very cold, with temperatures 2-3°C below the normal average. The weather started off mild in April, but May was much cooler. Overall, the weather has remained cool for two consecutive years, with morning frost at the point of harvest on October 18th. The solar weather patterns for the 2010 season are notable and similar those of 2009. The month of April was exceptionally warm and sunny. Both years, 2009 and 2010, had great amounts of sun, even more than the great 2005 vintage year.

After an early budbreak at the end of March, the unusually sunny days in April and May created a considerably advanced flowering, equally rapid for all of the grape varieties. After this early budbreak, a heat wave at the end of June unfortunately burnt some of the exposed young grape clusters. This dry weather was felt even more by extending the « veraison » time. The rain in mid July finally brought some relief to the situation.

At first, the 2012 vintage was to be difficult: whether our oceanic climate would have been forgotten in the last few years, we’ve been definitely reminded of our location, which is indeed rather good to produce great quality wines, but sometimes also quite humid. The vineyard had seldom needed such an amount of work, and all along the season, we kept going all through the vineyard. On the first 2 weeks of July, to compete the lack of sun, over 140 people came to “écharder” 100% of the vineyard.

In recent years, we have forgotten what a « normal » vintage means. In one way or another, Mother Nature’s excesses have become the new standard. 2013 is a perfect example. Weather conditions in the first half of the year, week after week, dampened our natural optimism : Late budbreak, Cold, rainy, dreary spring, Very difficult weather conditions during the flowering.

After quite a warm and rainy winter, an early budburst, and a fast and homogeneous flowering, cautious vine-growers and winemakers experienced a slow véraison. Once again the weather was good to us: all seasonal vineyard tasks in the first part of the year that are now part of our usual routine (such as getting rid of base bud shoots, leaf pruning, “échardage” (i.e. getting rid of laterals shoots specifically located in the cluster area, green harvest) could not compensate for the cool temperatures of the beginning of the summer. We began to doubt that we could produce a wine as great as vintage 2014. We desperately needed more sun and warmer tempera tures…

Beginning in the spring, temperatures were warmer than average. At the end of May, flowering was fast and homogeneous. In June and July, the warm temperatures led to a slow growing season, which stopped early. Conditions were similar to those in the best vintages.

After a rather dry and warm winter, the beginning of the growing season is rainy through June, giving way to a dry and hotsummer.Bud-break took place in mid-March, and this slow, yet stabel growth allowed us to forecast a late harvest.

After a cold January month, February and March were quite mild and the budburst was fast and homogeneous. The vintage began to look promising; April was particularly beautiful, with important thermal amplitudes. The wind shifted to the North. At dawn of April 27th and 28th, the sky was perfectly clear and temperatures fell below 0°C (32F).

Before 2018, « oceanic climate » was a broad meteorological concept made of different nuances. In 2018, from spring to the beginning of summer, this oceanic climate joined the vineyard to remind us of its main characteristic: high humidity spread over the entire season. Aer a complicated start of the season, nobody would have thought we would get such an amazing vintage. Once again, our job has been rewarded.

For many years now, we are very active in the vineyard and we opt for preventive measures, debbuding, leaf removal and removal of secondary shoots. Everything is set up to work in good conditions. In 2018, we had to work harder than usual and double our teams to keep it up. In 8 days, we had to de-bud and remove leaves from more than 500 000 vines.

Mid-July, grapes were perfect and were only waiting for the sun to start ripening. The heat from the end of July to the end of August, given the water resources present, allowed evolution without stress. The veraison was slowly homogeneous, the maturity was smooth.

The 2019 year started under the rain with warm winter temperatures. As a consequence, the budburst took place 15 days sooner than usual. Flowering happened with slightly low temperatures and few rainy days caused flower abortion and millerandage. On the other hand, these precipitations were beneficial at the beginning of summer and helped us to handle July’s temperatures. During veraison, the sudden dryness locked some berries; we will sort them with manual harvest or with the optical sorting table.

The end of summer was cooler allowing the vineyard to rest. Some showers at the beginning of September arrived right on time to swell the berries … and our hopes. The harvest date of each plot is the key for this vintage. Regarding the choices we made during the season (leaf removal, plots’ age, soil composition, weather condition …), harvest choice is also crucial and requires a daily control in the vines. Each day, we walk miles and taste hundreds of berries in order to establish the harvest plan adapted to our plots.

We harvested the whites while keeping an eye on the reds! So fresh mornings the first days of September were perfect for two reasons: the white of Cantenac Brown had been harvested in perfect conditions and in the meantime the ripeness of the red grapes evolved phenomenally. Since the first analysis, merlot and cabernet sauvignon show remarkable polyphenols. The first harvest day was set on September 18th for the youngest vines. Enough time to get the team ready and then wait until the end of the month to harvest the great merlot and beginning of October for the cabernet sauvignon.