A decent year

Bobby Kacher is a specialty importer of (mainly) French wines based in Washington DC. He is thought a lot of here and his portfolio is well represented in the Massachusetts market. Today, I received his email newsletter. It contained the following summary of the 2008 growing season in France, which is of interest if for no other reason than the sheer oddity of it (the season, not the summary).

Our November trip to France took us to the Loire, Alsace, Chablis, Burgundy, Rhône, Costières de Nimes, Minervois and Roussillon. Every year we like to get a feel for the vintage, even though the wines are in their infancy and sometimes at an odd stage. We also check the previous vintage and update our grower friends with the state of our market.

The "vacanciers" (holiday makers) of July-August were not happy campers in 2008: it rained a lot and never got hot. Not a good sign for the vines either... Light is needed for photosynthesis. Mildew settled in some vineyards, and whoever was not there for the treatments got a bad surprise on their return. By the end of August, the vintage looked lost. Maturity could not be reached.

But then a miracle happened: the sky cleared up, the sun started shining, a cool wind from the North started blowing. This change dried the vines and concentrated the raisins. Cold nights and cool days prevented botrytis from developing and it pretty much saved the season. But it remains a growers' vintage: those who made regular treatments, pulled leaves and waited long enough will make good wines.

The "second crop" was dense in some vineyards that had not been tended properly, which is not something you want to see. Dropping fruit in July was essential in obtaining a healthy harvest. Vineyards under biodynamic regime sustained the pressure only if they had a few years under their belt: like human beings, a plant needs to "clean up" for the treatments to be effective and that takes time. Newly converted vineyards suffered a lot... Northern and Southern Rhone had a small crop, so did Muscadet.

We found high levels of malic acid in some regions, not a bad thing for some wines. Since the temperatures were low the fruit came in cool and fermentation was slow to start allowing better extraction to occur.

Overall, the Robert Kacher Selections growers fared well: 2008 will be an OK year, with good potential for quality in some regions. As [Northern Rhone winemaker] Jean-Paul Jamet said, "we need to de-dramatize the 2008 vintage: it will be a decent year".