2024 harvest begins, looking set to be a late vintage with a small crop

In both 2022 and 2023, harvest was well underway for the white grapes in mid August, after a summer with almost zero rainfall, with reds first hitting the baskets in early September. I remember driving through Pomerol in mid to late September in both years, and seeing almost no bunches left on the vines.

In 2024, in contrast, there have been plenty of grapes to see when driving around both Right and Left Banks over the past two weeks. Even some whites have only begun this week. While most of the Sauvignon Blanc and Sémillon is now finished (and grapes for Crémant picked back in August and early September), you’ll see white grapes still coming in for the new dry wine from Château d’Issan in Margaux. They are picking 1.7ha of unusual white grapes for the region – Viognier, Roussanne, Marsanne and Rolle (Vermintino) – for a wine that will be called Le Jardin d’Issan, to be bottled as Vin de France.

Over at Château du Tertre, and another Vin de France white grown in the Margaux appellation, almost all of their white grapes are now safely in the cellar, with just the Gros Manseng to go, expected in mid October. On the Right Bank, Château Angélus in St Emilion has just about completed picking their Chardonnay, Sémillon, Sauvignon Blanc and Chenin Blanc for their two unusual whites Blanc du Milieu and Grand Vin Blanc.

Angélus white grapes 

The first Merlots on the Right Bank are underway in both St Emilion and Pomerol, although many are holding off to see how the weather progresses over the next few days, while in Lalande-de-Pomerol, Julien Noël of Château Moncets is beginning his Merlot harvest today, on Friday September 20. He explained that millerandage (uneven fruit set) has impacted a lot of the later terroirs that suffered from difficult weather during flowering, and that mildew has been difficult on the drier soils, but in the end they have seen good quality berries with good quantities, although phenolic maturity is arriving far later than in recent vintages (‘is some cases closer to what Bordeaux as doing in the 1980s’). Cabernet Franc in particular they are seeing extremely high quality potential.

Grubbing up vines is far from the only reason for small yields this year though, with strong mildew pressure, poor flowering, and a relatively dry summer not helping. Back in May, things were already complicated. The region saw the second largest October to April rainfall in 70 years (the wettest being 2001), and by the end of September the amount of average annual rainfall is likely to have doubled to somewhere north of 1800mm according to Benjamin Laforêt at Château Angélus, although again with much of that falling over winter and early in the growing season.

The summer months, particularly August, have been dry, and on my visits through various vineyards on Left and Right Bank, I have seen very little rot, although some instances of grapes shrivelled through mildew. The biggest issue is that sugar levels still need to rise, particularly for Cabernet Sauvignon, and the upcoming rains are not helping calm nerves. The question over the next week is how much rain is going to fall, where, and will there be enough accompanying wind to help dry things out quickly.

On the bright side, there are some steady hands with plenty of experience out there, as the upcoming anniversaries show – 2024 is the 40th harvest for Hubert de Boüard at Angélus, and the 30th of Philippe Blanc at Château Beychevelle. There are also some new cellars to keep an eye on, including new viticulture buildings at Château Latour with 127 square metres of photovoltaic panels, a space dedicated to biodynamic preparations, a room for drying plants, water recovery tanks totalling 442 cubic meters, and a green roof composed of flowering, bee-friendly plants including thymes, teucriums, mints and lavenders.