Harvest 2015 at Chateau de Paraza : 5 winederful weeks

The harvest 2015 is promising of a very good vintage: the entire cycle of the vine took place in a quite perfect way, spring rains combined with a very hot summer with just enough water led to healthy grapes, ready to reach optimal maturity for the time of the harvest. The dream of every winemaker.

The harvest, crystallization of the winemaking process.

All year long, the winemaker spends his time in the vines: to prune, to tie, to raise, to trim, to taste… all these little things to get into optimal conditions for the highlight of the year: the harvest.

This year, we have waited for the beginning of the harvest even more impatiently. We were very eager to test our new platform to receive the grapes freshly harvested: a stainless steel tub, a sorting table, a stalk separator: ideal to select only perfect quality grapes

The 2015 harvest started very well

 

We started the harvest on September 10th, 2015, at 5a.m., with the Roussanne. We followed with the Syrah dedicated to the achievement of rosé, then with the Bourboulenc and the white Grenache; meanwhile, the other grapes in the vineyard (syrah, grenache, mourvèdre) followed peacefully their maturity process under a gorgeous September sun.  What a pleasure to go tasting the grapes in the vines every day and to feel how they get a little by little sweeter, less acidic, with more crispy seeds.

 

Last week, we finished to harvest the last grapes for the making of rosé. A first parcel of merlot was harvested and put in a vat for fermentation. The Syrah grapes, with their slightly wrinkled skin, are the next on our list this week. Next will comme the Black Grenache, and Mourvedre, and eventually the parcel selected to be harvested at a very high maturity level (In Vino Veritas).

 

5 winederful weeks

All in all, it will take about 4 to 5 weeks to harvest all the grapes.

5 weeks during which we witness the sunrise already quite awakened;

5 weeks during which we witness the sunset while waiting for the last press of the day to complete;

5 weeks of hardworking processes in the cellar;

5 weeks during which we can rely on each other for support at any time;

5 weeks during which we prepare the new vintage;

5 weeks of stress, closely monitoring the weather forecasts which might turn to our disadvantage. Yet, this year, it seems that the gods are with us : 5 weeks of winederful work.