Lions de Suduiraut

Blanc Sec

Vintage conditions

The winter was moderately rainy and cold until February, when milder weather returned and caused a fairly early bud break around 25th March. As in 2021 a mass of cold air hit the region, leading to severe frosts on 1st and 2nd April. The impact was significant with a 40% loss in our yield. However, having pruned part of our vineyard late, several hectares were fortunately saved, as well as some vines that had not yet started to bud.

From May onwards, high temperatures favoured resumption of the vines' growing cycle, and the vintage's sunny character. Flowering occurred rapidly with the strong sunshine, two weeks earlier than in 2021; the cycle then accelerated due to the heat and some rain in early June. The phenological stages ensued rapidly over the month of June. The first heat wave occurred in mid-June, leading to water stress. At the end of June, we had thunderstorms with some hail in our area. Between 5 and 30% of our vineyard was affected, depending on the plot.

 
The summer was hot and dry, with two further heat waves in mid-July and early August. Temperatures exceeded 40°C. Some rainfall in mid-August enabled the vines to withstand this very dry year and helped ripening. Only young plants started to show signs of severe stress.

We started harvesting for the dry whites early, on 18th August, breaking all our records. The grapes were beautiful with a very good level of acidity.
We finished harvesting the gravelly plots on 23rd August, and followed up with a slightly more clay-heavy area from 24th to 27th August. The harvest of the dry whites ended on 31st August with the plots on the Yquem hillside, which are later-developing terroirs. It took 12 days in all to harvest this dry white vintage.