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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.

What’s strange is that I’d planted a little corner of different varieties for test purposes right here – chardonnay, riesling, viognier, chenin blanc, pinot noir, syrah and so on. All completely illegal of course under French appellation law* but the vines are clearly identified, ahem, as being part of the garden, not the vineyard. The huge branch has fallen right across the chardonnay. So there is a God, or at least one who’s on the side of the people who make the rules.

Another cedar has come down on the right hand side of the drive as you head towards the château. The uprooted base is absolutely massive, towering above 5 year-old Tom, and the vulnerability of cedar trees, with their shallow root systems, is clear to see. Once they’ve toppled over, that is.

* We’re only allowed to grow merlot, cabernet franc, cabernet sauvignon, malbec, petit verdot, and carmenère for the reds, and sauvignon blanc, sémillon and muscadelle for the whites. Pinot noir and chardonnay, the red and white varieties respectively in Burgundy, for example, are strictly verboten in Bordeaux. It’s all about typicity and terroir, you see.

Now where’s the chainsaw? And the tractor…

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.

“Two things surprised me about Bordeaux,” wrote Paul Shearer in an article in the Financial Times, back in June. “The first was the breathtaking beauty of the place. The second was the warmth of the welcome from the Bordelaises.”

It’s chilly and dry in the mornings, which helps to stop any rot spreading, but jackets are off later in the day.

Meanwhile, it’s my job to taste the grapes, check on their condition, watch the weather forecast, and decide when to pick each parcel. The white crop is well down as I have reported before but the quality has markedly improved in most blocks thanks to the dry spell since the 13 September. 

The rot on this bunch stopped just in time – much more rain and it would been too unripe and acidic, and the rot would have spread. But now the grapes taste great – well, not the actual one I’m fingering here.  Notice how tightly packed the grapes are in a bunch of sauvignon blanc. Now imagine lots of rain being pumped up by the vine, dilution of the flavours, grapes bursting at the seams, rot spreading in the damp conditions…

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.