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In the middle of the night, at 3.30 in the morning on 13th May, we were battered by a hailstorm. And when violent winds accompany the sound of hail, we know it’s very bad news. Parts of Bordeaux were hit the night before, on Monday 11th, and we’d had a smattering of peanut-sized hail too. Our vineyard manager Daniel joked yesterday that if we’d been included in that storm, with hailstones the size of new potatoes, we should change our métiers, or jobs. I don’t think he was expecting lightning to literally strike twice.

On close inspection first thing this morning, this is by far the worst we’ve seen here. We lost 50% of the crop on 24 June 2003, and last year we had frost in April that wiped out much of our sauvignon blanc.

This year, as a result of last night’s hailstorm, the amount of white we can make will be far lower still, which is really sad considering the amount of new vines we’ve planted. The merlot has taken a pounding too – around the château we’ve lost perhaps 80% of the potential crop of all varieties, spread over some 16 hectares or 40 acres. Younger vines, which are not yet in production, have also been hit, and have probably been set back a year due to the damage to the young wood.

We are now spraying to try and save what’s left, but it’s not looking good. There certainly won’t be any Les Trois Hectares white in 2009, as every old sémillon vine there has been trashed for this year, and we’re attempting damage limitation for next year’s crop, as the branches of the vines have been peppered.

Judging by the collapse in the price of sauvignon blanc from New Zealand after a bumper 2009 harvest the other side of the world, you might just detect a hint of Marlborough in the Château Bauduc Bordeaux Blanc for 2009. Although I somehow doubt we could get the tanker past the authorities.

Cue ‘Always look on the bright side of life’, from The Life of Brian. And a ‘Sod the Donkey – Adopt a Vine’ appeal to our customers. Buy now before prices rise.

More anon. If I can summon up the enthusiasm, that is.

But what a relief to bring the grapes in this late in the season in such good shape. This is the merlot from the block shown above, pictured last thursday, and the gravel soils have provided excellent drainage.

Our vines look great, especially compared to one of our next door neighbours in the Premieres Cotes de Bordeaux, who must have taken the summer off (left). Them grapes are sure gonna be no darn good.

Will our lovely grapes ripen before the ugly rot gets there first (right)?

In particular, effective spraying against the threat of mildew and rot was important, and the effeuillage in July, or pulling the leaves away from the fruit zone by hand, has kept the bunches well-aired. If they had been encased in a damp canopy of leaves at this stage, the grapes would have little chance of ripening and rot could develop quickly. We nearly bankrupted ourselves with the cost of it all – we had a team of a dozen or so experienced seasonal workers at times (left) – but it now feels like it was a risk worth taking.

This morning was cold and drizzly, so we need the weather to cheer up.

This year, we’ve decided to make a cracking rosé. Not that we have deliberately set out to make un vin rosé ordinaire in the past, it’s just that we haven’t focused enough on the style and that’s been reflected in the results.

You’ll often find that a Bordeaux rosé is a by-product of making red wine. Once you’ve put your red grapes in the tank, you run off some juice the following day to concentrate what’s left (i.e. less juice to macerate and ferment with the skins). You then cool ferment the ‘left over’ pale juice just as you would a white wine – without the skins. Bingo: rosé.

The problem with this method – called saignée, or blooded – is that you are using juice from grapes that you’re making into red wine. The grapes need to be fully ripe for red but for rosé, we need a bit less alcohol and a bit more acidity – we want juice from grapes that aren’t too ripe. 

So this year, we’re making a rosé from specially selected blocks – merlot, cabernet franc and cabernet sauvignons. The first to ripen is the merlot so it was a 4am start again yesterday to bring it in as fresh and cold as possible. Just like the white we want to avoid oxidation. And then we pressed the grapes straight away to avoid tannins (pressurage direct), which we hope will bring great results. We’ll have to wait and see.

I sat next to the equally interesting and much more attractive Christelle Guibert, Tastings Director for Decanter magazine, and before lunch had an enlightening chat with John Kolasa (left, with Christelle). John runs Château Canon, as well as Rauzan-Ségla in Margaux. We talked, as one does, about the ludicrous prices for top wines from Bordeaux, and John suggested that I write a book entitled ‘It’s only wine’. Good for him.

On my left flank, pony-tailed Helmut Knall, of Wine-Times (based in Vienna), challenged every other bottle that was presented to us over lunch. Initially, I misunderstood him when he whispered ‘Play with me a little’ but I duly played along once I cottoned on to his game. He made his point well, as there was considerable bottle variation – of the same wine – from one bottle to the next. Separate bottles of Angélus 2001 and of Troplong Mondot 2000 showed quite different personalities. Helmut suspected the cork – and he’s an ardent fan of screwcaps – but I have my doubts: I didn’t detect any hint of the dreaded TCA, the evil compound that if present in a cork will taint the wine. Bottle variation is nothing unusual with fine Bordeaux. At any rate, debating the issue of bottle-closures seemed a bit futile here, as I can’t see any wines of this type being bottled with Stelvin in the foreseeable future. 

For the record, we drank Canon 2001, Angélus 2001, Pavie 1999, Magdelaine 1990, Clos Fourtet 1989, Beauséjour 2000, Trottevielle 2000, Troplong Mondot 2000, Belair 1995, Figeac 1995, La Gaffelière 1975, Beau-Séjour Bécot 1998, Pavie Macquin 1998, and Cheval Blanc 1998. (Unfortunately, Alain Vauthier’s Ausone isn’t in the ‘Groupement’, for reasons unknown to me.) Delicious as they were, I think the younger wines would have benefited from more breathing time in their decanters beforehand. I didn’t ask but I reckon the wines were decanted not long before lunch. An hour or two more would certainly have helped. 

Neal and I popped out after the petits fours for a sharpener in a bar over the road, but our beer together was cut short when we realised that he hadn’t factored in the hour change to his return train time to London. He missed it, but thankfully caught the next Eurostar at no extra charge. After all, it’s a lot more expensive than the TGV to Bordeaux.

Grass down the middle of the rows can help, and it provides good competition for the vines, so we’ll have to sort that out in the autumn once all the alleys have been straightened out. 

Daniel, the guvnor, is back from his annuals and is out there trimming the vines. As well as keeping the vines in good shape, it’s a preventative step against mildew when timed correctly. The row on the right has been given a short back and sides, while the row on the left is about to be snipped.

These are vines I planted in 2001, and they’re just beginning to produce good merlot fruit with interesting flavours. We have to use one of our two smaller tractors because the rows are quite narrow at a width of 1.80m. With the gap of 1m between each vine, that’s 5555 vines per hectare. Far better than the 3000 you’d find in many Bordeaux vineyards, producing the same volume of wine with many more bunches per vine, and not far off the density in top Pomerol and St-Emilion estates. It’s much less than the 10,000 vines in a top Pauillac estate like Lafite, but then again we have much steeper slopes to contend with, and very different soils. I’m often asked how many bottles we make from a single vine: judging by the likely yields of just over 40 hectolitres per hectare, we’ll make about a bottle of wine per vine from this parcel. God willing.

I wanted to get the timing spot on this year as 2008 will be a later harvest than the norm, and to achieve optimum ripeness, we will need to give the bunches the longest possible time on the vine before rot could set in later on at the crucial stage of the harvest. I’m not after over-ripeness, as one might find in some styles of St-Emilion, but we are a few days behind our more illustrious neighbours due to our cooler soils and altitude, so I need all the ‘hang time’ I can get.

Even some ‘biodynamic’ vineyards sprayed against rot in 2007. Allegedly.

The pulvérisateur I bought in early 2006 has served us really well, especially when mildew attack is never far away in damp summers like 2007 or in May or June 2008, which were also damp. In action, it looks a bit like Bill Nighy’s squid-like character, Davy Jones, in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, with all those tube-like tentacles slithering about. 

Last week we also had to spray to protect against mildew – the protection lasts about two weeks once applied – as well as the anti-rot treatment, and both have to be carried out separately. Winegrowers get a bit nervous about mildew, although it’s one of the dullest subjects on earth and you can feel yourself losing a grip on reality when talking about it. As an example, here are two text messages from my friend Sean Allison of Chateau du Seuil (pictured) on yet another holiday: ‘The stress is killing me: I’ve just run out of sun-cream’ and ‘I can confirm there is no sign of mildiou in the Greek Islands’. 

With Daniel our vineyard manager on a three week holiday, Hafid has been hard at it before he goes on his (three-week) annuals today. He’ll certainly be pleased to get away from his fussy patron, who makes him work when he should be relaxing. Monique our assistant is also on three weeks’ holiday, and Nellie has just come back from three weeks off.

We had a wet week in Cornwall. I think we’re missing something.