2007, 2006 and 2005 Bordeaux

The 2007 growing season and harvest. A mostly mild winter and a rainy February and early March ensured an early budbreak, which in turn predicted a very early harvest. However, very cool weather in late March and the first week of April dragged out the budbreak, especially for the cabernet, setting the stage for very irregular ripening of the fruit.

With plenty of water in the soil, vine growth exploded when the weather turned warm at the end of the first week of April. Temperatures quickly mounted and the month ultimately brought almost summer-like conditions, with record temperatures and little rainfall. It turned out to be the best month of weather for Bordeaux until September. May then turned cooler and more moist, and the flowering began in the middle of the month, or about two weeks ahead of normal. A stormy period during the last week of the month slowed down this process, and then up-and-down weather in early June dragged it out still further, triggering coulure in later-ripening vines and exacerbating the irregular ripeness of the fruit. By this point, it was clear that the crop would be of an average size at best.

The combination of a wet late winter followed by a hot April followed by an irregular and humid May triggered a massive outbreak of mildew (not to mention oidium and snails, which were considerably easier to deal with). Worse still, the mildew began in the clusters, where it was difficult to identify at the outset, and then spread to the leaves. Many estates would spend the next four months constantly battling this malady. Once established, mildew could be impossible to eliminate, and châteaux that did not spray repeatedly at exactly the required times often lost sizable portions of their crop.

From the second half of June through the end of August, the summer was a sad affair: cool and dreary, with little sunshine and on-and-off rain throughout, even if precipitation totals for those months were only average to moderately above average by recent standards. The veraison began early, in mid-July, but, like the flowering, was dragged out over a much longer-than-usual time span, extending well into August. Many estates, including those that had previously thinned their crops and eliminated bunches that had been dried up by mildew, now carried out a green harvest to remove the bunches that were last to go through veraison, in the hopes of reducing the range of fruit ripeness at harvest-time. As a rule, those estates that did not continue to reduce crop levels through the summer were unable to get their fruit ripe enough by the end.

By mid-August, the gloomy conditions had resulted in the beginnings of rot, and heavier rainfall between the 20th and 29th only made matters worse. While rainfall amounts differed by appellation, most areas received at least three inches of rain during this period, normally in the form of a couple of major storms. Grapes swelled and split, and rot took hold. At this point, most growers were on the verge of writing off this difficult year. But then the weather cleared on August 30, and, miraculously, September and early October turned mostly sunny and dry (by some accounts, September had the lowest total rainfall since 1985). With a dry northeast breeze dominating, rot problems disappeared, damaged grape skins became less of an issue, and many châteaux were able to let their fruit hang for better ripeness. In the end, the luckiest among them were able to pick at leisure, while others had no choice but to bring in their fruit before it was really ready. Small estates on the Right Bank were able to pick with great precision, while some larger châteaux in the Médoc reported the longest harvests in their history. And precision was necessary to making good wines, as fruit harvested too early lacked phenolic ripeness, while merlot picked too late lacked verve and personality.