Beaucastel
The Vintage
A year of contrasts made a balanced wine
A CONTRASTED CLIMATE
The first month of the year was very mild with temperatures reaching 18oC. In contrast, February was extremely cold with record temperatures of -12oC. This lasted 10 days and was accompanied by strong Mistral with gusts of 120Km/h.
The spring was cool and wet with strong Mistral blowing up to 172Km/h. This cooler spring lead to a later budburst than usual.
The summer was also full of contrasts with a cooler, dry and windy month of July, and a very hot (41.9oC on 21 August) month of August
. We then had an Indian summer in September and beginning of October that were sunny, hot and dry. A bit of rainfall in August and September limited the hydric stress and helped complete the maturing of the later harvest varieties.
The hours of sunshine between April and September were very good and comparable to 2010. The average temperatures on the other hand were cooler, especially at night.GOOD HARVEST CONDITIONS
We started harvesting on September 7th with Syrah. Harvest conditions were good and temperatures were average. The crop was very healthy and the phenolic maturity reached moderate sugar (therefore alcohol) levels. We ended harvest with Mourvèdre on October 12th.
Like every year, we paid special attention to the sortingof the grapes in the vineyard but also in the cellar. The grapes were entirely de-stemmed (by pendulum motion). Then a second sorting after de-stemming of the actual grape itself allowed us to sort the grapes that hadn’t reached perfect maturity.
Yields in 2012 were quite a bit lower than average, around 20hl/h.
