VINTAGE 2015

“Windy, dry, early, mild, the best vintage in four decades” – this is how the 2014/15 summer and wine vintage climatic conditions have been described.  Following a cold and wet winter, August had higher than normal temperatures which caused budding to be about seven days earlier.  Dry and windy conditions during flowering and berry set, put vines under early stress and resulted in smaller berries which were more uneven in size. Thus we had more berry sorting to do. Maximum temperatures during February were significantly lower compared to our long term average, which had a very large positive impact on grape quality during the last stages of ripening.  Despite the dry conditions, we had no heatwaves until after harvest (the earliest onset of harvest in more than ten years).

On Normandie Est. 1693, the 2015 extreme climatic conditions illustrated again how unique the terroir is within the “protected” property, as we only began harvest two days prior to our earliest vintage. Consequently our grapes had time to ripen slowly and perfectly until harvest at optimal ripeness. Our yield was 27.7 hectolitres per hectare.