THE HARVEST IS OVER IN COGNAC AND THE PROSPECTS ARE GOOD FOR THIS VINTAGE

In Charentes, the home of cognac, volume is predicted to climb 12 percent to 8.82 million hectoliters from 7.88 million hectoliters, with a warm and dry September halting the development of botrytis and mildew fungal disease.

Harvest of the ugni blanc grapes used for distilling cognac started late September, with “clearly” higher-than-usual grape weight compensating for a reduced fruit count. 80% of the harvest suffered from difficult climates during the summer with hailstorms earlier in the summer mid june to late June. And a rainy summer, with a cooler than usual August. September was surprisingly sunnier which allowed for a last minute recovery of the situation.

99% of the producers have completed their harvest as of today.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwZ5TCcE8bk&w=560&h=315]

Distilling cognac will start in 3 weeks. Regulations allow distillation to be operated from 15th November to 31st March. Right now producers are focused on fermenting their juices into wines in times for the 4 1/2 months distilling season.

9 liters of wine with 9% Alc/Vol will produce 1 liter of eaux-de-vie with 70% Alc/Vol. Eaux-de-vie is the name of the spirit produced from distillation. Only after it is aged 2 years in oak barrels, the eaux-de-vie is then called cognac.

2012 COGNAC APPELLATION D'ORIGNE CONTROLEE PRODUCTION YIELDS STATISTICS

. Cognac yield down to 9.57 hectoliters of pure alcohol per hectare in 2012.
9.57 hectoliters/ha = 957 liters = 252 US Gallons of pure alcohol.

Cognac Vineyards - Fins Bois

. A vineyard producing wine for comparison does:
52 hectoliters/ha = 5200 liters = 1374 US Gallons of wine.

Grapes Harvest  Credit: Wikipedia.com

Can you see something wrong with the cognac harvest photo above? Yes! No!

1. It is not Cognac. Correct! This is on the west coast USA.
2. It is not Cognac AOC authorized grapes. Correct! These are chardonnay grapes.
3. There are watering the vines. Correct! Watering vines is a huge big no-no in Cognac AOC.

Early 2012, the Interprofessional Bureau of Cognac (BNIC) fixed the Cognac yields: 10.83 hectoliters of pure alcohol per hectare.

Every year the BNIC sets the maximum yields per hectare. Everything above this yield has to be sold to make other use than cognac. This limitation from the BNIC is part of the many regulations to control the volume of cognac in the market and therefore to reinforce the status of cognac being an authentic luxury spirits.

In 2012, Charentes (1) vineyards faced strong climatic (from drought to heavy rain) and fungal (mildew and powdery mildew) pressures, the 4.699 farms producing cognacs finally displayed a yield of 9.57 hlAP/ha.

In 2012, the dual-purpose grape varieties from the limited area of Cognac produced 7.54 million hectoliters of wine (-15.5% compared to 2011). 98.7% of this wine production is intended to distillation and production of Cognac eaux-de-vie (this percentage was 95.8% last year).

(1) Cognac AOC overlaps 4 departments (sort of counties): Charente, Charente Maritime, Deux-Sevres, and Dordogne. The 2 Charentes are 97% of it versus the 2 other departments are marginally contributing. Charente and Charente Maritime are often referred to as "Charentes".

Source: www.winealley.com