September is harvest month for us, so unsurprisingly it’s been a busy one. Please forgive this lengthy journal of pictures, which is really designed for you to scroll through when you have the time and, indeed, the inclination.

Equally, after completing 25 growing seasons at Bauduc, we’ve nearly reached the stage where it might act as a useful aide memoire.

If you have any questions, suggestions or would like to get in touch, please email us both by clicking this link.

All the best

Gavin & Angela Quinney

Subscribe for offers and news

First up, as ever, was the harvest of our white grapes for our Crémant. Nelly and René tipped the whole bunches into the press for the method which is helpfully known as ‘whole bunch press’.

Pavie proudly showing off the Sémillon.

This was the 1st of September, the day before the bunches were harvested by hand.

The 2nd of September started off in a gloomy fashion, rather spoiling the chance of a picture of the sun rising behind good-looking vendangeurs, all hard at work in their t-shirts.

Meanwhile, a crane hoicked up the upper part of a wooden tower onto the château to replace the rotten one. (We didn’t know it was rotten until the main man came round especially to tell us, in the manner of a doctor passing on some sensitive news prior to surgery.)

Back to the picking and the lads were hard at it. This fellow had the right idea, as the way to a bad back is to keep leaning down to pick the grapes.

As ever, my job was to hand out the chocolatines. (They’re known, of course, as pains au chocolat in places like Paris and London.)

Coffee’s served too. Monday 2nd September is back-to-school day, yet I still haven’t discovered why that means the team is made up exclusively of men.

This is the main parcel of Sémillon vines for our Crémant, viewed from the top of the slope.

And here from the side, with this image from the end of July. (All pics here are from September ‘unless otherwise stated’.)

We planted that corner of the vineyard 20 years ago, in 2004. This was Daniel, our vineyard manager, and me working out where the vines should go back then.

When you prepare the ground for a vineyard here you don’t just plough the topsoil and plant the vines. Oh no – you’ve got to move all the earth about.

Here were the lads planting the young vines by hand in 2004.

Forgive the 20-years-ago aside, but I came across this photo with Rick Stein taken in the summer of 2004. He’d started buying our white wine a short while before, and this was when he went off to film his French Odyssey series which aired on the beeb the following year.

And it just so happens that we flew to Bristol and drove down to Padstow in Cornwall for a long weekend, just a few days after the start of the harvest. On the Friday we had a light lunch at Rick Stein’s Seafood Restaurant, though not the set menu with a free glass of Whispering Angel (listed at £16.80).

Sommelier Jason, who’s been there since before we bought and moved to Château Bauduc in 1999, looked after Angela, Sophie and me extremely well.

‘An aromatic, zesty Sauvignon Blanc so good that we stuck our name on it. Made by our friend Gavin Quinney at his Château in the Entre-Deux-Mers, where I think they make some of the finest Sauvignon.’ Toot toot!

20 years ago also saw the visit by the Gilbey family, who spent a quiet fortnight at our farmhouse. That’s Tom Gilbey orchestrating the chaos.

The eldest of Tom and Beth’s four children, young Freddie Gilbey celebrated his birthday at Château Bauduc during that summer of ’04.

So, 20 years on, it was a huge thrill for us to get the call up for Freddie and Shekinah’s big day just outside Padstow on Saturday 7th September.

It was also an honour to have magnums of Château Bauduc served as the red for the event, here being shown off by the lovely Tom and Sophie on the left, and the lovely Olivia on the right. (The dress code was ‘Brilliant/Formal’ by the way.)

Our Château Bauduc Celebration Cuvée 2020 was accompanied by the delicious sparkling rosé from our friends the Lindo family at Camel Valley – just down the road from Padstow – and the tasty Secateurs Chenin Blanc from South Africa. Magnums are great at big parties and weddings, though it’s wise to pop a ‘dropstop’ into each one as they make self-service much easier.

Wishing Freddie and Shekinah the best of luck, not least as Fred is the one who puts all Tom’s wine videos together. Those are well worth following on Instagram @tomgilbeywine.

On the Sunday we flew home as there was a crop to bring in. We’d already started on the old vines in Les Trois Hectares.

The old vines are a field blend of Sémillon and Sauvignon Blanc.

A field blend often refers to older vineyards which were planted more randomly, with different varieties in the same block.

Back to baskets and other important duties.

The Crémant rule book, by the way, stipulates that the grapes have to be hand harvested into crates – which must have holes in – so they don’t get squashed in a trailer.

I digress but if you want to see the strict rules for any French appellation, like say Chablis, Champagne or Crémant, google ‘cahier des charges‘ plus the name of the appellation and you’ll find a downloadable pdf. Thrilling stuff, of course.

The wine from these grapes won’t go on sale for a good couple of years. We are currently selling the delicious 2020 vintage, though stocks are now running low (we made just over 9,000 bottles).

Meanwhile, the Pavster keeps an eye on the pickers. The quantity and quality are high, which probably won’t be the usual refrain for 2024 Bordeaux.

If the bunches are in good shape, with no mould or rot to sort, the work is a lot easier and quicker.

Pavie’s only allowed to fraternise with the boss. Hafid used to work for us 20 years ago, before he went on to set up an agency for vineyard workers.

Back to that 20-year theme and this was Nelly and Daniel in 2004.

Our oenologue Mikaël Laizet – our wine making consultant – started working for the Michel Rolland laboratory in 2000 – which was ours and Nelly’s first full season at Bauduc.

Nelly, Daniel and Mikaël during the 2024 harvest. Guy Farge, our harvest machine driver, has also been working with us for over 20 years.

It was time to bring in some younger talent. So it was a pleasure to bring in Will McEuen for the harvest, here with his mum Kate and dad James. They are customers, as is Will’s grandfather Duncan.

Will wasn’t even born in 2004. His birth year was 2005 – a fine Bordeaux vintage – and it was in at the deep end for a 19 year old.

We kicked off the Sauvignon Blanc harvest with an early ripening block called Dageneau, on the left, which we also happened to plant in 2004.

The first Sauvignon Blanc, 10 September.

It didn’t take Will long to get the hang of the big red tractor.

Meanwhile, one of my jobs is to taste the grapes and take samples. From each block, I put a random selection of grapes from several rows into little boxes that I’d labelled up.

Deciding when to harvest comes from checking the grapes and analysing them for sugar, acidity and so on.

And this year, more than most, it was about the health of the grapes. If we get mould or rot (botrytis) kicking in, it’ll spread quickly.

And the state of the vines – are they green, verdant and free from mildew and other nasties?

A decent terroir helps. This is an old Sauvignon Blanc vine, planted on a ridge which has light clay over limestone underneath.

Here’s that plot of older Sauvignon vines which I snapped as I took those samples.

Next was the weather forecast, and the availability of the machines. So with a clear week in mid-September, I decided to hang on, waiting for the grapes to be a little less ‘green’, and to harvest when they’re a touch riper and with more flavour and intensity.

As mould was appearing in some of the plots, we had a busy weekend removing the worst bits.

Ange, Sophie and Will on the case.

Goose the cat kept tabs on the work too.

We had to get it done on a Sunday as we harvested early on the Monday.

We brought in a team of Hafid’s boys for the rest of the parcel as more hands make lighter work.

And the rows are long.

We tried to remove any bunches with serious rot but it’s a balancing act. It’s quite hard to manage as each person’s ‘quality control’ is different.

Of course, even when you’ve used the same supplier for years for hiring out the harvest machines, all the growers want them around the same time. It can be a major source of frustration and our only way round it was to take the early morning slots – as in around 4.30 – 5am.

Will was on call well before dawn every day to drive one of the tractors.

Bringing in the grapes in the cool of the morning is certainly a plus, especially as we macerate the skins with the juice for a while in chilled, stainless steel vats.

We bought this smart red tractor earlier this year and it was handy to have a chunkier model for towing the trailer full of grapes.

The log of the trailers coming in with the Sauvignon Blanc showed that only two arrived at the winery after 9am.

Only a small amount of the Sauvignon Blanc was hand-picked. Mainly from the rows which were too difficult for the machine to turn into.

The harvest machine has plastic booms which shake the grapes off the vine, by the way, as opposed to cutting the whole bunches off when harvesting by hand.

After an early Wednesday harvest, that was Angela in the Créon market just up the road from us.

Onto the red grapes for making rosé. These Merlot and Cabernet vines, taken at the end of July, produce grapes for the pink.

It took me a while to collect grapes from the different blocks for analysis.

Pavie in different parcels of Merlot which were all destined for our rosé.

And here with both Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc. We’ve yet to harvest the later-ripening Cabernet Sauvignon.

It was an early start each day for the rosé too.

The Merlot by the château always goes into our rosé.

Merlot vines by the farmhouse, just before and after the machine.

It was a quick and relatively straightforward process. (If you have the right kit and the right people.)

Each morning for over a week or so we brought in the Merlot, and afterwards, the Cabernet Franc grapes, which went straight into the press. There’s no hanging about as we take the juice off the skins swiftly.

We will harvest the Cabernet Sauvignon for the rosé later this week.

Thumbs up. The quality for the whites and rosé has been high, though the yields lower than normal, and now we’re transforming the lot into what we hope will be extremely tasty wine.

Onwards and upwards.