What's happening at Bouchard Finlayson - April 2013

Monday, 1 April, 2013
Bouchard Finlayson
The privilege and adventure of producing fine wines has a great deal to do with the weather. Grapevines need water to grow but grapes need little water to ripen, which is a paradox, but here at the coast we face a balancing act where our weather welcomes us, each summer on a “wobbly tight rope”.
2013 has been navigated with care, at times the weather threatened to topple us but finally we kept our “cool”. Literally our “cool” and this has been a most welcome “cool” season with late ripening and excellent fruit. Patience prevailed and we waited for our fruit to reach optimal representation. The most significant feature of 2013 has been the unusually long winter of 2012 with the added challenge of a very wet October month! Wet Octobers yield vigorous growth which triggers problem plant pathology threats.
 
While this all sounds scary and marginally depressing it is in fact the very “appropriate” scenario we are looking for. Worldwide quality wine production is synonymous with marginal but cool climate conditions… The result being that not every vintage pleases, some are too “cool” for cool winemakers. The bottom line is we are not quite finished yet but so far all points to us looking forward to some very exciting prospective wines from this happy cool vintage!
 
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