11/09/2025
Settled back home after a brilliant time in Ch*****ne for the ever joyous harvest season. A few notes on this year.
’25 was reported to be a very promising year, with good growing weather and not too much rain. A much needed harvest after an extremely difficult 2024.
However, growers were surprised with the low quantity, it wasn’t expected!!
The bunches were tight and the grapes small and concentrated and extremely pleasing on the eye (lot’s of perfect looking bunches). A few reasons to the low quantity are the vines are still recovering from 2024 and also during flowering there were some very cold days!
But fear not, the quality is amazing! Yes the yields are lower than the growers would like but the taste and juice concentration are very impressive.
Potential alcohol is ranging from 11.2 - 12.5 with our producers. Especially Chardonnay hitting the high 12’s across the region. Growers actually had to be super careful of picking dates to not be overly ripe and risk exceeding the appellations ABV limits - could this be something we see evolve in the future with climate change?
A very exciting year, albeit there may not be masses of 25’s knocking around in the years to come. I think future non vintage cuvees blended of ’24 and ’25 could make some really interesting w**es, especially as growers will need to do so in order to make the most out of their quantity!
A much needed quality year, I just hope the unexpected lower quantities don’t impact on producers too much!
*****neHarvest *****ne *****ne
