"This could be the year of the winemaker" in Switzerland, said Francois Murisier, head of the wine section at the Changins Federal Agricultural Research Station in Nyons. All eyes will be on the skies in coming weeks, at least in the vineyards. If the weather is relatively sunny and dry for the rest of the growing season the 2007 harvest could be excellent, Murisier said Sunday, talking to GenevaLunch at the Mondial du Pinot Noir competition in Sierre, Valais.
"My greatest fear is that if we have too much rain, rot will set in." The weather forecast is promising but forecasts beyond five days tend to have only 50% reliability, according to Murisier.
Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday it rained, off and on, in most of the Lake Geneva region and Valais. Wine producers are looking skyward, hoping for better.
Photo: mixed clouds and dubious skies at dawn early in the week
The 2007 yield this year will be small, as have been the harvests of the previous two years, but this is a sign the growers have been able to cut back as needed to ensure a good quality crop and reduce stocks. Switzerland, like much of Europe, has spent several years grappling with over-production as consumption drifts downwards, -1% from 2003-2004 (latest OIV figures available) for Switzerland, compared to -1.1% for the European Union.
The weather in most people’s minds, Murisier points out, is the cool and rainy months of June and July, but the weather that made a real difference to the harvest was the early, very warm April in Switzerland, which followed a mild winter. "People forget now about April, but it advanced the vines by a month. We had small grapes on the vines around 3-4 April, where we would normally expect them at the end of the month, at the earliest." The cool wet weather that followed slowed down growth, but only slightly. "We lost maybe a week.
For Murisier the hallmark of 2007 will be the extent to which the weather is creating unusually great differences between the harvests of different varieties and in different
regions. "In Lavaux last week the grapes were already at 70 degrees oeschle
[ed. note: indicates sugar/ripeness, with different wines requiring
different degrees before they can be harvested for wine]. But in
Chexbres the grapes are still green! Two hundred metres of altitude
in
many areas has made a huge difference, with temperatures dipping higher
up" early in the season while the grapes at lower altitudes were able
to get a headstart.
Grape harvesting will, as a result, begin earlier than usual in some
areas for specialty white grapes such as Chardonnay. Pinot Noir grapes,
too, will begin to feel the scissors 18 September in some villages.
Cornalin, one of the great native red varieties for which the Valais is
gaining a reputation, is likely to be harvested in November rather than
October.
The late-harvest grapes are the ones that will worry growers most in
coming weeks because their season still has several weeks to run.
Growers and wine experts throughout the region appear to back up
Murisier’s predictions. Pierre Dévanthery, director of the Valais
cantonal wine office, says the health of the grapes in the canton is
excellent, but that the alternating weather in July and August has
slowed down earlier predictions for an early harvest. He now expects
the harvest to start in mid-September, based on his team’s visits to
some 15,000 parcelles (wine-growing plots), or nearly 15% of the vineyards.
Valais is the country’s largest wine-growing region, with 69 communes, 120,000 parcelles.
Vineyards vary enormously in their exposure to sun and wind in the
Valais, in addition to having greater altitude variations, from the
Rhone River bed up to the highest European vines in Visperterminen.
Most are grown no higher than 800 metres on the Alpine slopes but the
photos here show significant differences in nearly ripe grapes
photographed at 400 metres and those that are barely turning, at 600
metres.
Jean-Michel Bolay, wine engineer for canton Vaud, says the harvest
will indeed be early, despite August rains, starting 5-6 September for
some varieties, whites such as Chardonnay, Silvaner and Pinot Gris plus
the early ripening red wine, Pinot Noir. Garanoir and Gamaret are
already at 75 oeschle, which means these reds could technically be
harvested but they are more resistant to rot than Pinot Noir and will
be left to benefit from further time on the vines.
The peak of the Vaud harvest will be relatively early, 10-15
September, with Chasselas, which remains Switzerland’s flagship white
wine, brought in then. Vaud’s grapes, too, are healthy at the moment,
but, says Bolay, "It is very variable this year, even from one parcelle
to the next one over. Any weather event can have an impact in this
situation."
In Satigny, canton Geneva, Roger Burgdorfer of Domaine du Paradis
sounds more worried than the others. He is noted among wine producers
for growing an extraordinary variety of grapes and producing
award-winning designs with them. Rot is his main concern, if the rain
continues, but even now he has spotted some mildew on young leaves.
"We’re going to have to use copper – even the bio growers are having to
use far more than they normally would. You have to catch mildew early,
before it really starts on the leaves. If the young leaves are hit by
it they won’t grow." The young leaves at the tops of the vines are
crucial at this time of year, helping the grapes to reach maturity.
Watch the skies, hope for sun but not too much heat, and you will join the ranks of Swiss winemakers.
photo, bottom: heavy downpour hits Miege, near Sierre, just as the sun comes out, symbolic of the mixed weather of 2007