2008 harvest: brief report from the Layon

Across the Layon: October 10th 2005 from near Pierre-Bise
and looking towards St-Lambert

Château Pierre-Bise

Managed a quick chat with Joëlle Papin (Château Pierre-Bise, Beaulieu-sur-Layon) over the phone this afternoon.

“We are in the middle of the harvest – about half way through. We’ve done the first passage for the dry white, the Cabernet Franc and the rosé. Still to do are some of the rosé, some reds plus a bit more in Savennières as well as the sweet wines. The quality isn’t bad. It’s sunny but quite fresh, which is good. We have a problem with the birds eating the grapes – maybe nets would be the answer. We will be slimming down the size of our picking team next week as the sweet wine grapes aren’t ready to pick yet, so we’ll just keep a small team.”

Chenin Blanc, Beaulieu-sur-Layon October 2005

I’ve been very caught up this week with finishing off the 88th edition of Circle Update, the Circle of Wine Writers newsletter. Now this is out of the way I should have more time to check up on progress of the latter stages of the 2008 harvest.

Claude and Joëlle Papin, Château Pierre-Bise, 49750 Beaulieu-sur-Layon.
Tel: 02.41.78.31.44
Email: chateaupb@hotmail.com