Champagne Harvest 2015 – taking about the flowers and the bees with Dominique Moreau and Roland Piollot

 

The catch with live blogging is iPhone battery as I am finding out.. And when you run out, not only is there no live post, but also very few pictures…

I visited Dominique Moreau and Roland Piollot, another awesome couple of wine makers in the Aube on the way back home. They started their harvest campaign on Friday with a small team of 10 people. The rest of the 40 pickers were slowly but surely arriving to properly start the harvest tomorrow. 

Whilst I was there, a family friend came to report on the well being of the bees. Rolland and Dominique had installed a beehive in one of their vineyards this year but moved the hive for the harvest. “Bees are very important for nature so we wanted to do our bit to help them survive and propagate”, explains Roland. The bee carer explained than in summer bees only live 50 days, they look for food up till 3 km away from the hive. This is why it is important to have the hive in areas with some diversity of flowers and vines are often not the best place. However since Dominique and Roland chose a vineyard next to a forest and a fruit orchard the bees have been happy all summer. They will now remain in the hive, and will be fed throughout the winter, which means they will live longer (probably 6 months). The hive returns to the vineyard early spring. 

Besides talking about bees I also tasted the Eloquence juice. A small press load (1850 kg) had been loaded just before I got there. The Chardonnay was very ripe and lush and had a potential alcohol degree of 11.15%.

Up till now both Dominique and Roland are very happy. “Everything is looking very good! ” exclaimed Roland.

 

 The pickers picked some old vine Pinot noir and Pinot Blanc today, all the vines are clone massale plants grafted by Roland’s father in the seventies. Pinot Blanc can be quite tricky as it needs to be picked at the right time. When it is picked too early the wines are thin and acidic, when it is too ripe the wines are have and flabby. “The best window to pick is between 10,5 and 10,7 % potential alcohol”, explains Roland. 

I will return to see Dominique and Roland on Tuesday and will take a few more pictures. I may add more info to this post at that time as well.