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“2007 is bad for business” – David Sabon, Clos du Mont Olivet
I almost laughed when I heard this. It wasn’t until he lamented about customers tasting their ‘07s and then refusing to purchase any other vintage that it made sense. He even went as far as comparing the sweet fruit in the wines to drugs. While certainly an extreme example, there’s a lot of truth to what he said and when tasting through older releases at almost any domaine, the sweetness, purity and freshness present in the ‘07s make everything else seem a little less glamorous. There’s no doubt the vintage has seen serious hype but after tasting through a large number of them, I’m convinced that most of it is justified. The wines offer up sweet fruit, amazing purity and seamless personalities. Even the inexpensive Cotes du Rhônes possess a sweetness and texture that’s hard to find in other vintages.

The Vintage

Weather wise, the vintage saw flowering occur in early May with a relatively rainy first part of the growing season. From late June up until the harvest, the weather was extremely dry and saw relatively cool temperatures. According to the weather station in Carpentras, this was the driest vintage in the last twenty years with only 35mm of rain registered between June 16th and the 15th of September. The average daily high temperature recorded in Orange, France from May 1st through Oct 1st was 80.3 degree Fahrenheit (26.83 Celsius). Compare this to 83.3 in 2006 (very hot July but cooler Aug/Sep), 81.5 in 2005 and 81.4 degrees in 2004 (2003 saw an average in the high 80’s).

Another unknown factor was the mistral and this vintage was extremely windy. 20 days of strong wind were recorded between July 1st and the middle of September. Other than the obvious drying of the grapes, I don’t know what other effects this has on the finished wines.

Yields were average to a little above.

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