Bordeaux Harvest in St. Emilion at La Clotte
Jeff Leve: In 2010, you started your harvest, October 15. When did you start picking your Merlot for your 2011 Bordeaux harvest this year?
Nelly Moulierac “For the 2011 La Clotte, we started September 28 and finished October 6. This is earlier than last year, but not that much earlier”.
Jeff Leve: Are you happy with results with your 2011 La Clotte so far?
Nelly Moulierac “2011 La Clotte is an atypical vintage. It was a surprising vintage at the beginning. At the end, we arrived at a nice maturity with ripe tannins and ripe fruit. It’s a good quality vintage. We can already feel and smell the huge fruit which is characteristic of Chateau La Clotte. Still we will really need to see what happens after the vinification”.
Jeff Leve: Would you say, 2011 La Clotte was a difficult growing season for you?
Nelly Moulierac “Of course! It has been a hard job to work with this drought and the other issues like rot and the extra selection of the grapes needed this year”.
Jeff Leve: Did you need to do more sorting in 2011?
Nelly Moulierac “Yes, we needed to do more sorting than usual. To help, we added a new, vibrating sorting table that is large enough to allow 10 people to work on it. We also also conducted a first sorting in the vineyard”.
Q: With all that sorting, what do you think your yields will be with the 2011 Bordeaux vintage?
Nelly Moulierac “I think we’ll end up with about 36 hl/ha for this Bordeaux vintage”.
