Had a great interview with the lovely John Salvi yesterday (an MW who has lived in Bordeaux for the past 35 years, and who puts together a monthly Weather Report that is widely used by wine buyers and other professional wine bods). I could only use a line or two in the Decanter piece, so thought I would put a more in-depth version here.
'Let's be honest, it's not good. I've just been to a meeting with the president of the Bordeaux/Bordeaux Superieur Syndicate, and everyone present was coming up with excuse after excuse, but the facts are pretty clear.
The white wine crop is very low. It was always doomed to be low because the buds were scare after last year's season. The flowering was totally chaotic with both coulure and millerandage. Then there was hail in various places, plus the frost in early April, that in the worst cases lost up to 30% of the potential harvest. And August was a beastly month, with over 17 days of rain, and night time temperatures down to 11 degrees.
The reds are taking a long time to mature, with the merlots worse affected by the weather than the cabernet sauvignon, but cabernet is still far from ripe.
They can say whatever they like, but again the situation is that those who can afford to cosset their vines will escape the mildew, those who can't will be badly affected.
The weather will have to be seriously superb for the next few weeks to improve matters, and predictions aren't that good.'
