Well that's it for another year! The 6th Jones vintage has been safely harvested and is now gently fermenting in vat. The first bunch was cut on the 4th September and the last bunch on the 8th of October.
2014 harvest was a 'close shave' of a harvest ! In a vintage that saw 4 months of rain fall in just 3 hours in Montpellier 60 km away, followed by horrendous floods we count ourselves to have been very very lucky!
Here we did have rain mid harvest but a relatively light shower of only 45 mm over 2 nights. It would have been good if the north wind had then blown to dry the vineyards but for some reason the north wind has been particularly absent this year. In fact in the whole harvest we only had 1 day of north wind and then only blowing at a feeble 40 km an hour. It usually acts like a great hair dryer in the sky and blows away any moisture that may be on the grapes thus allowing us to harvest in a more sedate manner.
When it decides not to blow it makes the harvest all the more complicated! The skies were dominated by the moist south wind and humid air so the picking rota changed daily to make sure that the grapes were picked as soon as they were at optimum ripeness.
This was probably the most challenging vintage to pick so far due to the weather but thanks to the numerous helping hands it was probably one of the most enjoyable harvests too!
And those hands did help - picking, carrying, sorting, washing - many thanks to all who made the 2014 harvest special!
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