2024 Coutet

“It was a challenging growing season,” Winemaker Aline Baly tells me at the château. “There was early debudding—we had only just finished pruning—on March 21. There was a small spring frost during UGC week, and we had to put turbines out and burn hay. The vines grew easily after the cold snap, but there was rain that caused downy mildew. Temperatures were not so high during the growing season, so we had a normal flowering date. The weather was fine during this period, resulting in no loss of crop. July was a clement month without hot temperatures, which had an impact on the level of acidity as there was little degradation of malic and tartaric acid. The growing season was long. The dry wines were picked at the beginning of September instead of August. There was some rain, therefore we harvested some parcels of Sauvignon Blanc around September 11-14 , which offered various kind of lots [in terms of ripeness, acidity, etc.]. We waited longer for the old-vine Sémillon. For the first time, we finished picking the dry wine as we picked the first trie for the sweet wine, around September 19. The good weather was followed by showers, so the first pickings were very important. We had second and third tries at the beginning of October, then we had one week of dry weather to encourage more botrytis infection. There were fourth and fifth tries, but it constantly rained, so there was little pourriture noble. Some blocks were not picked or not blended into the Grand Vin. Vinification was normal.”