Mâconnais 2016 and 2015: Dealing with the Elements

BY STEPHEN TANZER | NOVEMBER 30, 2017

Following the drought vintage of 2015 and its atypically rich but sometimes unwieldy wines, 2016 yielded fresh, pure, aromatic wines that should offer considerable early pleasure. But concentration levels vary widely in ’16, as a severe late-April hailstorm had a major impact on vine yields in much of the southern Mâconnais.

While the Mâconnais in 2016 avoided the devastating spring frost that had such a dramatic impact on production across much of the Côte d’Or, large swaths of the southern Mâconnais were hit hard by a violent hailstorm on the afternoon of April 13 – a weather event virtually unprecedented so early in the season. The storm came from the west and curled off to the north and then west again. By most accounts, the villages of Chasselas, Fuissé, Davayé, Pouilly and Solutré sustained the most damage; the southern section of Saint-Véran was also seriously affected. There was less damage in Chaintré and Vinzelles, and crop losses were spotty in Vergisson, at the northern limits of the Pouilly-Fuissé appellation.

A patchwork of vineyards on the north side of La Roche de Solutré

The primary buds were largely destroyed in the vineyards that took a direct hit from the storm, and following the shock to the vines it was a good three weeks before any secondary buds (the contre-bourgeons) emerged – if at all. This set the stage not only for a small crop but for a wide range of ripeness – not just between vineyards affected and those spared by the hail but between any remaining first buds and the second set on the same vines. Some growers anticipated at the time that they would essentially have to do two harvests in 2016.

The northern Mâconnais escaped the hailstorm, and here vine yields were mostly full – and even excessive where growers did not take steps to thin their crops.

The Post-Hail Growing Season of 2016

The very mild winter and rainy spring also triggered serious mildew and oidium issues in the Mâconnais (as well as on the Côte d’Or and in Chablis). With so much precipitation from mid-April through mid-June, growers could not get into their vineyards with heavy machinery and were forced to don moon suits with backpacks to spray. (As elsewhere in Burgundy, some growers chose to abandon organic treatments and to use chemical sprays to prevent further crop losses.) And spraying had to be done repeatedly, exactly when it was needed, to keep the mildew at bay. The mildew often directly attacked the buds and although few growers I visited in October admitted to significant losses, some did – and as much in the north as in the south. Happily, except where the foliage was widely compromised, these issues did not have a serious impact on the quality of the grapes, as those that were affected dried up and fell off the vines (think of a cigar burning to ash, which then blows away.)

The flowering in 2016 could also be tricky, as it was cooler than normal from June 12 through 19 but much warmer for the rest of the month. Following the very late flowering and predictions of a late harvest, 2016 was looking like a disaster in the making. But conditions improved dramatically in July and most of the summer was warm and dry until the harvest, which generally began between September 13 and 20 in the southern Mâconnais and at least a week later in the north. It was the very favorable conditions through much of the summer that allowed the later-budding sites to reach adequate ripeness and by varying degrees reduced the disparity in ripeness between and within sites affected by hail.

Some vines, particularly in the north, began to show signs of hydric stress during the warm, dry August and early September, but not generally to the extent witnessed in 2015. A couple of well-timed rain events (for example, on August 18 and again on September 19) nourished the vines and “unblocked” the grapes. But some growers in the north with full crop levels struggled to ripen their fruit and only started picking at the beginning of October.