The summer was very unseasonable, and will long be remembered by those of us who were on holiday in France in July or August !

Too quickly forgotten, however, was the superb spring weather we enjoyed here in north-east France, followed by a warm and sunny June. This led to speculations (or rather, fears) that the harvest would begin around 20 August, but most of the spring advance was cancelled out by the summer.

You can consult the figures of our own maturity controls with the last measurements carried out in certain plots of our estate vineyards on September 5. The evolution is very positive and shows the potential of some excellent results for the harvest itself which will in certain cases only take place in about 4 weeks.

Despite a particularly miserable summer, our 2007 vintage will be almost the earliest of the past 100 years, beaten only by 2003 which began 2 days before, on 8 September. 

5 September has been decreed as the official starting date of the 2007 Alsace still wine harvest, as everyone remembers how fast the sanitary state of the vineyards deteriorated in 2006, causing many winegrowers to subsequently criticize the authorities for delaying the start of the vintage for too long.

There is no comparison in 2007. With a few rare exceptions, the vineyards are in perfect condition, the weather for the past 10 days has been dry and temperatures cool, with the thermometer reading just 5°C this morning. Healthy grapes and cool temperatures to ensure a slow finish to ripening, what more could an Alsace winegrower wish for ? 

We invite you to consult the daily figures from our own weather station. The comparison between the daily temperature and humidity levels during the months of May and August are quite interesting. These figures show that we have witnessed a very unusual growing season in 2007. Both temperature and humidity levels were more favourable in May than in August. In August 2003 we had several days above 40° C, while there was not a single day above 30 in 2007 !