Harvest Report 2024

Harvest & Season Notes 2024 : Wet, Wet, Wet…

Scottish band “Wet, Wet, Wet”, lead singer, Marty Pellow, was said to have been fed up with singing his sensationally popular 1994 cover of ‘Love is all around’ (the most played version of the Trogg’s 1967 hit), as it became inescapable, first in discos, then shops, and finally lifts. Rain seemed to be equally unavoidable during the 2024 growing season in the southern Rhone – and more broadly across western Europe.

The rain was accompanied by frost and hail down here to make an unhappy triumvirate, with some producers claiming volumes to be 30-50% down. Thankfully at Unang we were spared the frost (too early in the season for us) and hail, but we certainly had the rain. By early May in 2024 we had exceeded our 2023 annual rainfall (465mm). And as I write, in early November, we have managed to register 825mm for the year to date.

The rainfall underlined that the climate scientists have a fair handle on how temperatures will evolve over the coming decades (depending on their models) but they have no idea – know no more than you or I – on what will happen in the future, or next year, with rainfall. There is evidence of more extreme events (such as in Spain in early November) but very little certainty.
Our rain had two principal effects: during flowering caused ‘shatter’ – poor fruit set on the Grenache, and it triggered mildew through the season. Both these reduced the Grenache yields but with little impact on quality. With the Syrah it provoked larger yields (Grenache and Syrah flower at different times, and Syrah is less prone to shatter), with resulting lower alcohol levels. So, despite double the rainfall available, our crop was exactly the same size as last year’s (2023 being hot and dry). Who would have thought it?

The moisture kept temperatures cooler, the figs at Unang were fully one month later ripening than usual. The flow of the natural springs around the château barely slowed during the summer. We started the olive harvest this week and the trees have loved the rain, they are laden with a record crop. We may well have oil to sell at the cave this year.

These cooler years tend to give more subtle and nuanced wine, rather than the concentrated power of the hot, dry years. Glancing back, we tried the 2014 La Croix (in magnum) at the harvest supper. This showed that the acidity profile of the cooler year made for a wine that was elegant, spritely and with longevity. I also had a bottle of our classic white from 2014 last weekend. The Clairette was still all stone fruit and white flowers; and wonderfully fresh. Oddly, 2004 was also cool – and our La Croix from this year still has much fruit flavour to offer now – and at only 14° alcohol.

The moisture meant it was a good season for our complants (replacing missing vines in the parcels). They gleefully soaked up the rain and were less likely to need their weekly watering – only being watered 5 times. It is very difficult to establish the young plant when it typically has two mature, deep-rooted vines either side. And the difference in results for the complants, but even whole new plantations, in wet years versus hot years is dramatic. The levels of successful establishment are nearly 100% in wet years, versus closer to 50% in hot ones.

Among the losers this year were wasps and hornets, there were very few about. They must not have enjoyed the cooler, damper conditions. The pickers were happy not to bump into quite so many of their nests during harvest. (I have recently learnt that the invasive Asian hornets we see are oddly immune to alcohol and can happily consume the calories in fermented fruit juice at well over 30° alcohol with no ill effects*. Handy, and who knew?).
Fewer wasps this year but Unang still boasts formidable biodiversity. And this year we celebrated it with new labels on our classic red (golden oriel, bird), rosé (fire salamander, amphibian) and white (hare, mammal) wines – featuring three of the five animal classes (reptiles and fish feeling left out, for now) seen often at Unang. It felt odd changing what has worked well for the past 20+ years but we wanted colour, a message and found a suitable young artist – in the form of our son.

We continue with our biodynamic treatments as this helps build resilience in the vineyard. The future conditions will be a challenge for the vines so we need to help prepare them for that. We have also continued our regenerative farming, driven by Joanna, with leguminous cover crops sown between the rows of vines. This builds organic matter, adds nitrogen, reduces erosion and soil temperature, amongst many other positive impacts. We should start to see differences in 2025 after two seasons of these complimentary actions.

Once the grapes were harvested there was then a beautiful month of sunny, warm weather from mid-October to mid-November. A shame it didn’t arrive a few weeks earlier. And despite this unseasonably warm weather there is still no sign of the secondary malo-lactic fermentations kicking off in the cave.
JK 6.11.24

*The hornet’s gene supports the production of enzymes that help break down ethanol into components that can then be metabolised. So their behaviour and life-span are not impacted by alcohol – making them unique in the animal kingdom.