News from the Vineyard

by Raj Vaidya

September 23, 2020

This week, the work our friends and colleagues in Burgundy are busy with is primarily inside the cellars. During the last two weeks of August, when New York felt a great deal warmer, the harvest in Burgundy was in full swing. I thought it would be fun to share a few fun facts illustrated by this video of a sorting table and destemming machine at the Domaine Marquis d’Angerville in Volnay. Guillaume d’Angerville has mentioned to me in the past that the identity of the wines at his family’s estate has long been defined by the purity of fruit that is associated with destemming the grapes. Though he has pointed out, in his father’s days the destemming was done by hand, and so was rougher and less efficient than today. The destemmer today works quickly and quite gently, and is more precise in removing all the stems.

The resultant wines are perfumed, supple and fairly deep in color thanks to the lack of stems. In this short video, you can observe the team at d’Angerville giving the grapes a last sorting on the conveyor table (unhealthy grapes have already been sorted out while harvesting in the vineyard, so this is a second run) as they make their way to the destemmer.