Interesting Siting in the Vineyard

My husband and I are now both working in the Auxerrois, which happens to be located on the west side of the vineyard and close to the forest edge. Earlier, when I was leaf pulling in the second row of the Auxerrois, I ran into several yellow jacket nests in the ground and marked the location where they were. I worked for a few more lineposts and saw a large entry way and sure enough, the yellow jackets were coming in and out of that hole in the ground.

I informed my husband about the "discovery" and he said that he would get to it early in the morning on a cold day. Yesterday was that day and when we went to the location of the yellow jacket nest, this is what we saw:

Something had dug a hole into the yellow jacket nest and pulled out the chambers where the larvae and pupae were located. We had never seen anything like that before.
We took pictures and searched the internet and AI came back with the following information:
Several animals prey on yellow jacket nests with skunks, raccoons, and bears being the most common. These mammals dig up the nests, attracted by the larvae and pupae inside and will also consume the sweet nectar in the nest.
Our best guess is that it was a skunk who helped us get rid of the yellow jacket underground nest. I hope it had a delectable feast!
This let my husband off the hook for spraying the nests.

Vintage Notes 2025: The Auxerrois is at Veraison

We are splitting work duties in the vineyard. My husband is working in the Chenin Blanc and I am working in the Auxerrois. I can tell that the grapes are coming out of their lag phase, the time after berry set where the grapes stop growing. For white grapes, the "tell" that they are in veraison, or the beginning of ripening is when the berry becomes soft to the touch. For a few days now, I have noticed that the Auxerrois is soft when I handle it so I was curious to know what the Brix was. Yesterday, I brought the hand held refractometer to the vineyard and was surprised when taking the reading that the soft Auxerrois berries were at 15 ^oBrix! The slightly greener berries were at 13 ^oBrix.
Here is a photo of the Auxerrois. We only see this in the Auxerrois, where sometimes there are three clusters to a shoot.

It seems early to me that the Auxerrois is already this far along in sugar accumulation. I need to update my chart of the annual cycle of growth. All this means is that we need to bring the nets down in the next few days to protect the ripening grapes!

2000 Chateau Malescot St. Exupery Margaux

My husband opened this 2000 Chateau Malescot St. Exupery Margaux a few nights ago when he made his smoked steak. It's been a while since we had beef for dinner! This was the perfect accompaniment for his delicious meal of steak, baked potatoes and a side salad.
On the bottle, it mentioned that it was classified as a Troisièmes Crus (Third Growth) in the 1855 Bordeaux Wine Official Classification.
I'm always curious about the wines that my husband has purchased and stored so I found more information about Chateau Malescot here: Chateau Malescot St. Exupery Margaux Bordeaux Wine, Complete Guide.
The 2000 Malescot according to this site, is one of the best vintages. With 25 years of ageing, this wine was still holding on to rich black and red berry flavors with a long, smooth finish.
This site also went into some of the history of Chateau Malescot and I found that to be very interesting. Chateau Malescot St. Exupery can be traced all the way back to 1616 when the Margaux estate was owned by the Escousses family. The Escousses were best known as notaries for the King. In 1697, the chateau was sold to Simon Malescot who was the attorney-general to King Louis XIV. The property remained in the Malescot family until the French Revolution.
Over the next several years, the formerly robust Bordeaux vineyard of Chateau Malescot was split and split again. In 1813, Francois Benoit Dunogues purchased the chateau, reselling it in 1825 to Louis Pierlot. The Pierlot family resold the property to Comte Saint-Exupery, who added his name to the estate.
In 1853, the chateau was sold to Mr. Fourcade. Mr. Fourcade died in 1866 and Chateau Malescot St. Exupery was sold to a group of owners, the most notable being Mr. Boissac in 1870. During World war I, the French government confiscated the estate.
In 1955, the Zugar family bought the chateau and spent 10 years bringing the vineyard back to it's current incarnation. In 1994 Jean Luc-Zugar took over the reins of Chateau Malescot St. Eupery with Michel Rolland as consultant.
The 30-hectare vineyard of Chateau Malescot St. Exupery is planted to 50% Cabernet Sauvignon, 35% Merlot, 10% Cabernet Franc and 5% Petit Verdot. The terroir is gravel, chalk, and clay soils with iron deposits on gentle, slopes.
Vinification takes place in a combination of 22, temperature-controlled, concrete vats and stainless steel tanks. Malolactic fermentation takes place in either tank, vat, barrel, or a combination of any of those vessels. They can use concentrators or reverse osmosis machines, as well as bleeding of the vats to increase the concentration of the wine. Those decisions are left up to the vintage according to Jean Luc Zuger. The wine of Chateau Malescot St. Exupery is then aged in between 80% new and 100% new, French oak barrels for between 14 to 16 months before bottling.
Knowing the history and the vinification of this Bordeaux wine made me appreciate it even more. I asked my husband if we have anymore of this wine and he said we have 2 more!

Grape Health During a Heat Wave

We have been having an unusally hot summer, punctuated by heavy rainfall. We have been seeing some signs of berry stress in our Chenin Blanc where the berries in some clusters have been raisining. Here is a minor example of what we are seeing. I am bringing my tweezers to the vineyard so that I can clean these sunburnt grapes from the cluster.

I was telling my husband about what I was seeing and then I came across an article in Wine Industry Network, written by Mark Greenspan called "Growing High Quality White Wine Grapes".¹ It was a timely article to be reading because we are now in the lag phase of berry growth and experiencing high heat bordering on drought conditions and his article was focussed on this phase of berry growth.
White wine grape growing is more difficult than red wine grape growing. A white grape is inherently more vulnerable to degradation since it doesn’t have an arsenal of polyphenols protecting it which is the case in red grapes because they have anthocyanin compounds for protection.
However, a white grape does have some means of protection which can generate aromatic compounds if the stress event occurs during the grape lag phase.
Benefits of heat stress during grape lag phase:

• aromatic compounds are produced in abundance during periods of abiotic stress, such as a heat wave, because they help protect the plant from oxidation
• water stress imposed during lag phase upregulates the synthesis of many secondary metabolites associated with better color and mouthfeel
• other compounds associated with water stress imposed pre-veraison include thiols or mercaptans, organic compounds containing sulfur that are associated with passion fruit, guava, and grapefruit aromas and flavors
• Glutathione is an important compound in helping white grapes with stress
  
• glutathione is synthesized in many plants in response to abiotic stress such as drought, this compound breaks down into thiols, which accounts for the many desirable aromatic compounds in wine
• glutathione is integral in protecting plant tissue from oxidative stress, which is more important in white grapes given that the antioxidant anthocyanin is lacking
• biochemical pathways responsible for terpenes and 13-norisprenoids (derived from carotenoids) are upregulated by water stress between lag phase and veraison, these are the compounds associated with floral and earthy aromas

The link between phenolics and water stress is well-established. In places where irrigation is practiced, such as California, farming practices can be manipulated to increase the tannins and color by planning the appropriate time to irrigate after hot weather.
This article recommended that excessive leaf removal be avoided. Where severe heat events are on the rise, shade cloth and microsprinklers are being used to cool the fruiting zone.
My husband and I are quite conservative when it comes to leaf pulling. My husband is of the mindset that the leaves on the west side of the canopy should be left in place in order to protect the grapes from the heat of the afternoon sun. Currently, we are working in our Chenin Blanc, hedging, shoot thinning, shoot tucking, shoot positioning, and leaf pulling. This is what the canopy looks like on the left side and how the leaf pulled grapes look like on the right side of the photo.

We are trying to strike a balance between air flow, which is critical for maintaiining a clean canopy and grapes and preventing the grapes from getting too much sun so that they do not raisin before veraison.
The weather for the first few days in August shows no rain, but also thankfully, no temperature hitting 90 degrees!
References:
1. Mark Greenspan, Wine Industry Network, "Growing High Quality White Wine Grapes.