went perfectly and is now sleeping in barrel. Not the easiest of years because a cold snap around flowering impaired fruit set, reducing the number and weight of bunches. But there seems to be a reciprocal relationship between the size of a vintage and its quality. If this year’s harvest was smaller than we might have hoped, there can be no complaints as to its quality: for once the balance between sugar and acidity, the physiological ripeness of the grapes, and (in my opinion more important than any of these) my personal assessment of their flavour profile converged: on March 9th we picked 5 tonnes of gapes whose numbers fell sweetly where I wanted them to. The ferments went through perfectly. Thank you, God.