There's no rest for our vineyard workers who, as soon as harvest had finished and the first cold days arrived, started the autumn and winter work on Château Palmer's 55 hectares of vineyards. Their tasks are carried out with great care but always in the interest of efficiency so that everything will be ready for the awakening of the vines in the spring. A balance perfectly mastered by our vineyard workers.
 
Pruning:
Pruning is of capital importance. Its completion will not only directly influence the upcoming vintage, but also the production of the vine for years to come. Just as in the art of pruning a bonsai, pruning the vine also requires a thorough know-how that involves rigorous training to master the technique. Our more experienced vineyard workers pass their knowledge on to the new arrivals.
At Château Palmer we use the "médocaine" pruning method, in which each vine stock is left with one "cane" (a long branch) on both sides of the trunk.  
At present, the Merlot vines are pruned.  Our vineyard workers will now begin pruning the Cabernet Sauvignon vines, a variety at high risk for vine diseases and needing to be pruned as late as possible.
This task has always been entrusted to our most experienced vineyard workers. By late afternoon, Pierre-Alain, Team Leader, invites his 8 coworkers to begin the next plot.
 
Removing the canes:
This operation consists of removing the recently cut canes from the vine supports.  To facilitate this task, the supports from the previous year are taken down with the help of a small billhook.  This traditional cutting tool, simple and efficient, the size of a knife, has a dished blade sharpened on the inside to facilitate cutting the ties.
 
Tying the trunk:
Observing "acanage", or tying the vine trunk to the marking stake, is a unique moment. As the morning mist rises, the sun shines on the orange-colored ties used to maintain the vine trunk upright against the marker.  By a series of skillful movements, the team of vineyard workers with their expert hands, tie the "vime" around the trunk and the wire.  This natural string is a willow twig that grows close to Château Palmer, on the banks of the Garonne River.
 
Training:
Done at the same time as tying the trunk, training is intended to fix the remaining canes to the wires in order to guide the growth of the future vegetation to respect the row.  Jacques Dupin, Vineyard Director, considers the vine a type of wild plant that must be guided, places great emphasis on this work.  The cane must be bent, in the form of an arc, towards the soil. This favors the growth of buds along the entire branch.
 
Replanting:
Our two tractor drivers scrutinize each plot to detect any dead vines.  They are delicately removed and will be replaced by young vine stock in the spring.

The lowest yields since 1961.
The 2011 harvest is marked by a limited production. Going back through our archives we found that it was the lowest yield since the mythical 1961 vintage (11.8 hL/ha versus 20hL/ha for 2011).
 
A meticulous vintage.
The extra time dedicated to sorting the grapes helped us to preserve the quality of this vintage, allowing us to avoid the consequences of the hazardous weather conditions suffered this year.
In the winery, after analysis, alcohol levels are lower than the 2010 vintage yet the wine shows a surprising acidity.  Due to the combination of adverse weather conditions and a small yield, the berries show an incredible phenolic potential.  In order to preserve these beautiful tannins, we extracted as gently as possible.
Such attention to detail plays a role in the elegance and precision of this Château Palmer 2011.
 
Promising signs to be confirmed.
Malolactic fermentation, which has just begun, will play an essential role in understanding the vintage.  There is an important amount of malic acid this year; its transformation in lactic acid will contribute in perfecting the wine's balance.
The final harmonies of Château Palmer 2011 will be composed during tasting sessions where we will define the blend, beginning mid-December.  It is a delicate composition entrusted to our technical team, fully committed to the completion of the 2011 vintage.

In harvesting this 2011 vintage, we focused on selecting only the best of what the vine gave us.  This year the hailstorm of June 4th, followed by the high temperatures of early summer, resulted in a heterogeneous yield.

For this year's harvest, we chose to use Optical Eye Sorting to help us in our selection.

Our harvesters were responsible for the first sorting phase in the vineyard where they discarded the dried bunches from the crop.

The second phase of selection occurred when the bunches were placed on the sorting table.  On a 6 meter-long table, the sharp eyes and quick hands of our sorting team carefully removed the damaged bunches.

After the berries had been separated from the stems, they continued on to our Optical Eye Sorting machine.  It chose the berries according to our own quality criteria, for a tailor-made selection.  The machine was adjusted to keep only those berries that had a certain degree of ripeness.  The dried or withered berries were removed as well as any remaining leaves or stems.

This constant attention insured that the quality of the harvest was respected.

We also added a second and final sorting table to have one last look at the harvest.

This combination of 3 selection phases, in the vineyard, on the sorting table and by the Optical Eye Sorting machine, allowed us to preserve the qualities of the 2011 harvest and to avoid the climatic hazards experienced this year.

To learn more about our first impressions of this 2011 vintage, we invite you to click here to read an interview with Thomas Duroux, CEO of Château Palmer, done by The Wine Cellar Insider.


The first week of harvest was sunny and warm, which allowed our Belgian and Danish students to spend their weekend discovering the beaches of the Atlantic coast.
This two-day break allowed the last Merlot grapes to round out; some berries needed a little more time to soften the structure of their tannins.

As of today, our harvest team has picked 18ha of Merlot, a variety dear to Château Palmer as it is planted on our grand terroir, giving our wine its distinctive finesse.
By Wednesday, we should have all of the Merlot picked, then sorted, before heading to the fermentation cellar. The Cabernet Sauvignon and Petit Verdot will follow.

For the third consecutive year, we've benefited from beautiful weather conditions for harvest: sunny and warm during the day, with cool nights. Unfortunately, many grey clouds darkened the skies this weekend, bringing with them some raindrops and raising fears of the development of Botrytis. But this year at Palmer the yields are quite low, decreasing the risk for the development of this mushroom, responsible for grey rot.

The dry spring, the hailstorm on June 4th and the heat wave at the end of June, played their part in eating away at our harvest yield. The vine has few berries but all of its energy goes into producing the best fruit possible: the grapes picked in 2011 are very rich in phenolic compounds.

In the winery, we currently have 15 tanks fermenting that perfume the fermentation cellar. The first juice is colorful and rich with serious tannins. Alcoholic degrees, very classically, are between 12.5% and 13.8% TAV. Our daily tasting sessions run by the technical direction team allow us to adapt our methods of extraction to respect the character of each parcel.

During the months of April and May, the sun was truly the star of the show, occupying center stage.  Not one drop of water for more than 60 consecutive days!  According to Météo France, this was the driest spring for more than a century, and the hottest in 50 years!  Over these past 2 months, we felt like we were already in the middle of summer.  The sky was deep blue, with warm temperatures of 28°C, and the vine's shoots stretching on endlessly, showing off the fruit of their effort.
 
These two continuous months of sunshine, accompanied by warm weather, allowed the vine to develop at an exceptional speed.  Rarely has flowering been so early, almost 3 weeks ahead of last year (full flowering was between the 9th and the 16th of May), leaving us to believe that harvest may be earlier than usual too.
 
The 2011 vintage already seems to be synonymous with historical vintages for its precociousness.
 
Unfortunately, a strong hailstorm hit our vineyard on the 4th of June.  Not wishing to prejudge the quality of a vintage that this magnificent spring allows us to hope for, we already expect a low yield as a result of the hailstorm. We have since had a few saving rainstorms that allowed the vines to recover their strength, the berries can continue their development, and plump up to a satisfactory size before veraison.
 
After desuckering, our vineyard workers continued the green work in the vineyards and should finish up today with suppressing the secondary shoots, lifting and topping the vines.
 
Now let's wait and see what Summer 2011 has in store for us...

What delicious aromas - for the past several days, the vines are giving off the most refined, subtle, and attractive perfume!

After a trying winter, the first buds appeared a few weeks ago and we are delighted to welcome these ephemeral blossoms and their complex bouquet.

The vines are flowering, and it's pure magic!

Their names are Lobesia botrana and Eupoecilia ambiguella.
They may sound like pretty flowers... but they are actually nasty pests!

These moths produce caterpillars, also known as "grape worms", which do a great deal of damage in the vines. They burrow into the ripening grapes, perforating the skins and fostering the spread of grey rot - a terrible scourge in the vineyards, quite unlike the noble rot in Sauternes.
The best way to protect our precious vines is to prevent the enemy from mating! Small dispensers release synthesised pheromones that disrupt olfactory communication between male and female moths. The males become disoriented, desperately searching for their female alter ego. When they cannot find the females, they become exhausted and give up...

Mating disruption replaces traditional insecticides and is species-specific, so it has no impact on human health and plants and does no harm to beneficial insects, thus maintaining biodiversity.

This inspired Yaron Herman and Michel Portal to dedicate one of the pieces they played at the "Hear 2010" concert to this phenomenon!
Listen to their music as often as you like, on the Hear 2010 section of our website.

In the heart of winter, our vineyard workers brave the cold and rainy weather -- conditions that are harsh and trying to say the least -- to maintain and prepare our vines so that they will be ready to begin their next growth cycle in the spring.  It's already time to prepare for the 2011 vintage!

During this period, we spend the majority of our time in the vineyard pruning the vine, tying it to the support post, trimming off and burning the cut branches, and shaping the remaining ones to their wire tutors.

Pruning at Château Palmer:
The vine is a creeper that needs to be controlled.  If nothing is done, the vine will produce numerous long branches, with sluggish production. Pruning is one way to control, balance, prolong and improve the vine's production, maintaining a precise shape to facilitate cultivation and tying up.

Pruning requires a very specific savoir-faire and is reserved for the most experienced vineyard workers who know what needs to be conserved and how to maintain the form of each vine.

At Château Palmer we use the "médocaine" pruning method. It's known as cane pruning, where we leave three buds for each branch.  This limits the production of grapes, improving their quality by concentrating sugar levels in the limited number of grape bunches.

Our vineyard workers began pruning the vines in November. This will continue until the month of March, when the vine's dormant period comes to an end.
"Prune early, prune late, nothing is as good as pruning in March", say our elders: in February/March, the sap begins to run in the stock, the vine "cries" and is less vulnerable to disease.  Which is why we begin with the Merlot, before moving to prune the Cabernet and the other younger, more vulnerable vines.

The daily tasting sessions, started on September 23rd with the beginning of harvest, continue this week to analyze the evolution of the last tanks.
 
The tasting team is attentive to the harmony and style of the wine, and takes into consideration how this corresponds to the grape's potential.  Which is how we decide when to run off the wine.
 
This is a decisive step because the young wine, still called "free-run wine", is forever separated from the grapes that gave birth to it.  During the past few weeks of gestation in tanks, yeast has transformed the sugar into alcohol; the juice has developed its aromas and taken on tannins, finding the structure to become a young wine. It is an undeniable achievement, rewarding a year of hard work in the vineyard and now, in the winery.
 
After running off the wine, the tank still holds the pomace, a mixture of grape skins and seeds.  This is delicately collected and placed in our vertical presses, reproducing the traditional methods of pressing.  With our method of winemaking (controlled and gentle extraction), and the quality of pressing, we obtain an excellent "press wine", and quite complementary to the "free-run wine", which allows us to use up to 5 or 10% of them in the blends.

We funnel our "free-run wine" and our "press wine" into barrels in order to begin their long period of ageing.  The barrels are carefully selected according to the know-how of our different coopers, matching the toasting level and our different parcels, the quality of the terroir, and how the samples taste. We try to optimize the marriage of wine/wood in order to favor the alchemy between these two elements.
 



When malolactic fermentation (the transformation of malic acid into lactic acid) has finished, the barrels are moved into the "Pope's Cellar", the wine cellar where the temperature never exceeds 14°.

And so each wine slowly begins to age, developing unique characteristics that will be appreciated during the upcoming tasting sessions for the final blend...

Here are some insights into this enigmatic vocabulary, and the winemaking that goes into producing the 2010 vintage.
 
At the end of the 2010 harvest, we had picked 230,829 kilograms of grapes.  The berries were meticulously selected and placed into tanks as they arrived at the Château.  The cellar team performed rigorous daily monitoring to control the alcoholic fermentation, temperatures and densities of each tank, divided into 38 lots.
 
Over five weeks, two teams of three people rotated shifts every day from 6am to 11pm in order to pump over each tank of wine, a required step in order to extract color, aromas and tannins.
Alcoholic fermentation began soon after the berries were placed in the tanks.
With the help of CO2 bubbles, the skins floated to the surface, forming a "cap" of marc. To obtain a wine with a delicious red color, offering a tannic structure that is solid, powerful and refined, the juice is regularly run through the marc; as it filters through, it takes on phenols and anthocyanins.
 
The singularity of Château Palmer resides in this regular pumping over, regular yet gentle.  This is especially true in the 2010 vintage.  The berries we picked this year showed a particularly high level of tannins and a remarkable extractability.  Pumping over was quickly slowed, or even stopped, in order to preserve the elegance, finesse and subtleness that make up the signature Palmer style.
 
Pumping over finished at the end of October, but almost half of the tanks are still filled with their wine, macerating. Extraction allows us to obtain the desired amount of tannins with the help of pumping over; Maceration is going to polish and soften these tannins.  Now they will fill out, becoming silkier, fatter, and plumper.  As Sabrina Pernet, Technical Director, tends to say, this is the finishing phase, essential to the blossoming and completion of the wine.
 
Rendezvous tomorrow for the next post...

Our groups of harvesters have now left for their respective countries of origin. For almost three weeks the Château was the meeting point for 110 adolescents, from the ages of 16 to 21.

Two groups, two objectives, and one mission: Harvest at Château Palmer.

The Danish students are from Holstebro, a region located in the northwest of Denmark.  It has been 12 years now that students from this school have been coming to pick grapes at Château Palmer.  The professors are almost professional harvesters. They prepare their students before their arrival in the Medoc by watching videos from past years, explaining the different varietals to them, the tools used, the right movements... Their trip here has a double objective: time spent working in a business environment and learning to live in a community, but also as a fundraising event for a week long ski trip in Sweden, to spend another memorable moment together.

This is the second year that the Belgian students have come to the Château.  They are from Malines, a small town located in the Flemish region, in the Anvers province.  Their professors hope that this experience will help their students learn to better live together, respect rules, and work with discipline.  A school of life, in a way.  An article was published in the Sud Ouest .

Supervised by Jacques Dupin, our vineyard director, Mustapha Oubouhou, team director and one of their professors, these young men and women put a great deal of energy and passion into their task.  According to Jacques, they all went about their work with goodwill and showed a great deal of curiosity.  They did well working in groups.  Organized in mini-teams of 5 people (4 cutters and 1 carrier), the students took turns helping each other in order to obtain their objectives.

After having, over these few weeks, animated the Chateau with their enthusiasm... Rendez-vous for the 2011 harvest!






October 14, 2010: Sixteenth day of harvest at Château Palmer, a day dedicated to harvesting our 2 hectares of Petit Verdot.
Almost 90% of our parcels have now been harvested.  Only 6 hectares of Cabernet Sauvignon remain, scheduled to be picked early next week.


We are heading towards the longest harvest in the history of the Château. This harvest has been spread over 4 weeks, due to the extended flowering period this year. Overall, the weather was favorable during flowering.  But the 50 millimeters of rain that fell on June 15th and 16th disturbed flowering, resulting in a longer-than-average pollination, coulure (fallen flowers) and millerandage (uneven development).



We took these obstacles into consideration.
The heterogeneous flowering was felt while in the vineyard tasting the grapes, which ripened at different speeds.  With this in mind, our harvesters had a few days off, while we "waited" for the grapes to fully ripen... and we had to accept that harvest would be spread out over a larger period of time, despite the logistical problems that this represents.
 
Our first impressions from October 4th are slowly being confirmed.
This summer's clement conditions have brought about noticeable water stress on the vines, favoring the metabolism of phenolic compounds.  We have grapes with a high level of tannins but with a beautiful structure.  Now we will adapt our winemaking methods to this tannic potential by using a slow and moderate extraction process.
 
33 tanks are now filled with the 2010 harvest; 33 samples were tasted this morning.  The first Merlots harvested have now finished their alcoholic fermentation so this afternoon we will begin running off the wine, then pressing it.

After being delicately cut by our harvesters, placed in their crate, then carried back to the Château, the grape bunches are then patiently separated in order to obtain only the perfect berries that will make up the essence of Palmer's wines.
 
This rigorous selection is the result of high-performance machines and skilled hands.

Every day, 13 to 20 metric tones of grape bunches go through the de-stemming machine that the Château purchased last year.
 
First step: the vibrating table. The bunches are gently moved around in order to liberate the damaged berries.
 
After this light massage, our team takes off the remaining leaves on the "whole bunch"-separating table.  The grapes are then taken through the elevating table to the area where the grapes are picked off the bunch.  A beating motion separates the berries from their stems, perfectly preserving them without breaking them.
 
The grapes then head for the berry-separating table, which is surrounded by a second team concentrated on yet another meticulous selection.  The remaining dried berries and the stuck bits of stem are manually taken out.
 

At the end of this process, which demands constant attention, a wave of dark and juicy pearls pours into the crusher, the last step before being placed in tanks.
 
The masterpiece is now finished. The delicate and savory grapes are now in the tanks where they will slowly liberate their juice.  The fermentation process will now begin...

What does Sabrina Pernet's day look like during harvest?
Without a doubt it's a day that starts early... and finishes late! Harvest is a rich and intense step in making our wines, at it demands a great deal of attention.

This is a strategic moment.  The vine has been developing all summer long, it flowered and produced some beautiful bunches.  The grapes have fattened, ripened, and developed their tannic force and aromas, under a benevolent sun this year.  The time to cut has arrived, followed shortly by the work in the cellar to patiently age the wine that will become a grand cru.

During these few weeks of harvest, Sabrina works closely with Thomas Duroux, Palmer's CEO, to insure that the grapes reach their optimal stage of ripeness. She decides the harvest date for each parcel (or divides the parcels if the quality is uneven and requires harvesting on different dates - see the article "The Medoc's Nest"), verifies the day's yield, and controls and adjusts the beginning of fermentation in the tanks. She also manages, with the help of the vineyard director and the cellar master, a team of 150 people, permanent staffers and seasonal employees, from the foreman to the vineyard worker, from the harvest reception director to the cellar workers, including the technical assistant, the fork-lift operators and the traceability director.

A glimpse of her schedule for an "average" day - of course, it's only an outline because of the frequent modifications due to unexpected events:
 
8:00 am: In the winery: debrief with the cellar master, Olivier Campadieu, and the team members who have been at work since 6:00 am, verify the evolution of fermentation in each tank, test for density and temperature levels
8:30 am: Debrief with the vineyard director, Jacques Dupin, instructions for the day's harvest
8:45 am: Quick stop in the office to check email, take care of emergencies, and check the weather
9:15 am: Green light for separating the berries at the reception area with the team leader, Yohan Sardo.  Update on the employees in place, material verification
9:30 am: Tasting berries in the vineyard to decide ripeness, zone division of certain parcels with Thomas Duroux and Sylvain Fries, technical assistant.
11:30 am: Back to the winery for a studious tasting of samples from all the tanks.  Each tank has its fermentation levels measured, with a pumping over protocol decided for that night, the next morning and afternoon.
1:00 pm: Lunch with the harvesters
2:00 pm: Weather check, another walk in the vineyard if there are still unanswered questions, inspection of the separating area
3:00 pm: Prepare the harvest schedule for the next day, as well as a provisional outlook for the next 2 or 3 days
4:00 pm: Answer emails; take care of administrative tasks unrelated to harvest
6:00 pm: The last tractors arrive in the harvest reception area. Weighing the bunches and the berries at the end of the day, as well as the total weight of harvest, to analyze yield. Verification of tank filling levels
6:30 pm: Team meeting with Thomas Duroux, the vineyard director, the winery directory and the technical assistant
7:30 pm: A last check in the winery for the latest density and temperature measurements
 
All of this with a telephone that never stops ringing!
 
.... Goodnight Sabrina ;)

Harvest began on September 22nd, when our vineyard workers began picking the replacement vines and the young plants. Early last week, our group of Danish and Belgian students arrived to complete the group.

This happy procession of harvesters picked almost all the Merlot parcels. Every morning, the berries are tasted in the vineyard in order to determine the parcels that will be collected the next day, according to the evolution of the observed ripeness.

What can we say today regarding the future of the 2010 vintage?
- We see a high degree of alcohol, around 14 to 15° for the Merlots, 13.5 to 14° for the Cabernets
- A higher potential for tannins than that of 2009
- A nice level of acidity, with a fairly low pH level compared to last year, and delicate aromas of fresh fruit
With these 3 factors of balance in our favor, this combination gives us a glimpse of a remarkable vintage.

Now we need to wait and see how the juice will express itself, evolving inside of each of our stainless steel tanks... Fermentation has almost finished in the tanks that received the first grapes picked. New indicators are soon going to allow us to confirm our first impressions...to be continued!

Parcels 37 and 38, more poetically referred to as Le Nid Médocain (Médoc's Nest), were divided up and harvested over time, as a certain number of our other parcels. This method of intra-parcel selection shows our unending desire to improve the quality of our wines.

Our three tasters - Thomas Duroux, Sabrina Pernet and Sylvain Fries - all noticed a difference in ripeness levels in this parcel, which can be explained by the different types of soil and the vigor of the vines, but can also be due to the age of the vines, the amount of water and/or nitrogen they receive...

The images speak for themselves, and the potentiality chart clearly shows this difference:

The green portion was harvested on Wednesday, whereas the yellow one had a few extra days to ripen. Yesterday, the technical team decided that the remaining berries had reached their optimal level of ripeness and our vineyard workers are currently harvesting this parcel.

These will be placed in separate tanks, in order to extract and emphasize the potential of each batch.

This is simply how each parcel is treated at the Château. The objective is to succeed in creating a blend in which the different terroirs of Palmer are perceived, revealing their subtlety...a perfect blend!

Last week, our team of vineyard workers got down to harvesting the replacement vines, before the arrival of our 110 student harvesters this week.

What are replacement vines?
Every year, on our older plots, a few of our vine stocks pass on... young stock are planted in their stead so that the vineyard retains a certain density.

Why an early harvest?
The berries on these young vines tend to ripen faster than those of their older neighbors. So we collect their berries first, isolating them in their own tank to take advantage of their particularly floral and fruity aromas.

This ultra-qualitative process demands the expert eye of our permanent vineyard workers, who are easily able to recognize these vine stocks (average age 7 years) from the others.

The light rain that fell last Friday was not enough to dampen the morale of our troops.
It's with a light heart that our now complete team will truly begin harvesting this week, with beautiful weather in sight.

The green light for harvest was given yesterday and we began with the young Merlot vines. After the Primeurs, harvest is the other hectic period of our year. Indeed, professionals and wine lovers around the world are closely following the quality of the grapes, which will determine the quality of the upcoming vintage...
In order for the next 3 weeks go smoothly, preparations are intense and the organization is carefully orchestrated!

In the vineyard, our team of harvesters is provided with not less than 6 tractors, 1,500 crates, 150 coops (pruning sheers) and 35 harnesses for the porters.
The team itself is made up of 130 motivated souls: 15 vignerons and vigneronnes, as well as 72 Danish students and 37 Belgian students accompanied by their professors, who are expected to arrive next Monday.

In the harvest reception area we have set up 1 vibrating separating table, 1 separating table for the bunches, 1 machine that picks grapes off the bunch, 1 separating table for the berries, 1 crusher, and, not to be forgotten, 40 nimble hands to separate the berries.
 
Finally, in the winery: 50 tanks were meticulously cleaned, 20 automatic sprinklers were installed and programmed, and 300 new French oak barrels are being prepared.
 

And let's not forget the 6 tents put in place especially for harvest in order to shelter the reception area and the dining hall for this big family.

It's the beginning of the wonderful adventure of Chateau Palmer's 2010 Vintage. Stay tuned for the next episode!

Sabrina Pernet and Thomas Duroux, respectively Technical Director and CEO, took their first tour of the Merlot parcels yesterday morning in order to taste the berries and determine their level of ripeness.

Tasting showed an important level of potential tannins. This was later confirmed by the laboratory tests that showed a Glories index (the measure of phenolic compounds) being largely superior to that of 2009.

Nevertheless, the berry skins are still very thick and solid. The level of ripeness for ideal tannin extraction has not yet been reached. This confirms our prediction that harvest should start during the week of September 27th.

Also noteworthy: flowering took place over time resulting in quite heterogeneous grape bunches. If the exceptional weather conditions that we have had over the past two weeks continue, this heterogeneousness should even out before harvest begins.

We have had beautiful, dry, sunny weather since mid-June and, after three rather demanding vintages, are delighted with the very low level of fungal disease. In fact, the last real rainy spell goes back to the 15^th and 16^th of June, after the Merlot had finished flowering.

Precipitation since the 1^st of April has been particularly low, with a total of just 147 mm as of the 5^th of August. This is much less than in previous years (for example, the figure was 267 mm by the same date in 2009). As things now stand, rainfall is equivalent to that for the 2005 vintage.
This lack of rain has obviously meant a reduced water supply to the vines. The effects are starting to show, with a positive influence on quality and the synthesis of polyphenols. This situation has also led us to change our vineyard practices, going on the assumption that "ploughing once is better than watering twice" (an old saying is all the more appropriate since it is strictly forbidden to irrigate the vines!).

Colour change, or véraison, started at Palmer on the 21^st of July. This got off to a relatively slow start, but has since speeded up, and peak véraison took place on the 5^th of August for Merlot. However, our Cabernet Sauvignon grapes will probably only reach this stage during the week of August 9^th. 

After excellent weather in early June, a week of cold and rain in the middle of the month interfered with the end of flowering and the beginning of fruit set. Incomplete fertilisation in some Merlot vines led to millerandage, although it is difficult at this time to evaluate the consequences on the future crop. While coulure (or shot berries, due to the absence of fertilisation) reduces the number of grapes per bunch, millerandage (tiny, aborted berries) necessitates careful sorting at harvest time.

The fairly cool temperatures for the season (less than 11°C) during this rainy period nevertheless protected the vines from mildew. Manifestations of fungal disease were quite low.

The weather has once again been beautiful for the past two weeks and the grapes are developing well, as illustrated by these photos of the same bunch of Cabernet Sauvignon taken over 6 days in a plot called "La Pièce du Chai".



A second round of tying up is coming to an end and, helped by 50 seasonal workers, our vineyard workers are continuing to remove side shoots, which they started doing in mid-June.

In the cellar, we are preparing to bottle 2008 Alter Ego and 2008 Château Palmer next week.

There is a tradition at Palmer that our savoir-faire and experience be shared with students from a wide variety of nationalities.

Noé PIERRON, a student in BTS at the CFPPA in Blanquefort, has been an intern here since early October.  He is in charge of the important task of following vinifications for the 2009 vintage.  We got to know him earlier this summer during his viticulture internship when he showed our vineyard boss just how motivated and serious he is!
Originally from Vannes, Brittany, he worked for many years in the business. It is for the love of wine and soil that he decided to change professions.  And to do so he chose to come to Bordeaux and Chateau Palmer, which is for him, one of the jewels of the Medoc!



 

Gaetano D'AFFLITTO is studying oenology at the University of Florence in Italy. As the son of a wine producer, his internship at Chateau Palmer will last for two months.  Cheerful and motivated, he's helping with pumping-over, alongside the permanent employees at the chateau, as is his compatriot Benedetta.  





Benedetta MUSSI is a young Italian that is also studying oenology, at the University of Pisa.  Benedetta immediately charmed us with her determination and her experience.  On the pumping-over team, she's distinguished herself by her savoir-faire and her swiftness.

We had barely begun yesterday, and today we're already picking the last clusters! 6% of Palmer's vineyard is planted with petit verdot. 

This year, petit verdot grapes have proven difficult to separate from their stems.  The team in the winery stayed late last night to carefully complete their difficult task.