STEP FORWARD, THE NEXT GENERATION

DECEMBER 2014

PIERRE-ANTOINE GAILLARD spoke of the travails the family faced in 2013, more so with the SYRAH crop than the whites, the red grape harvest being “complicated.” “But at least we had more crop than in 2014, when our average of 40 hl/ha in 2013 fell to 30 hl/ha due to the attack of fruit flies – moucherons in French, biological name suzukii - when the grapes were ripening, a blight resulting in rot that had already hit a lot of the vineyards in Switzerland.”

For him, the 2013 whites are very jolis, while his preferred appellation of the vintage is SAINT-JOSEPH. The PIERRE GAILLARD CLOS DE CUMINAILLE SAINT-JOSEPH RED has been a regular quality performer over the years, and the 2013 is as stylish as usual, holding admirably clear fruit.

Meanwhile in the 2013 En Primeur market, merchants are playing it cautiously. The vintage does not carry great advance billing, being in no way a grandiose affair. The style is for openly fruited wines that lack the normal stuffing of the warmest and best vintages. Some importers are not presenting 2013s pre-bottling, while others, such as H2Vin and BERRY BROTHERS (in 2015) have a reduced line-up in prospect.