We visited Haut-Bailly yesterday where Veronique Sanders echoed the optimism that we’ve seen at every property up until now – she said that so far it has been the most perfect growing season she has seen in her tenure at Haut-Bailly.  Last year the estate began to pick their young Merlot vines on 25th September, this year it was a full 10 days earlier.

Apparently the defining characteristic of this year’s growing season has been one of warm days but cool nights, which is normally a sign that the resulting wines will be well balanced.  July, August and September have been the driest for 10 years, but they’ve had just enough rain at just the right moment to prevent any hydric stress.

Clearly everyone is keeping their fingers crossed for the next two or three weeks, but so far everything seems to augur well.