Category: Champagne

Champagne harvest 2015 – enjoying a sunny Friday at Champagne Tarlant en Vendanges

As the sun climbed higher in the sky it became t-shirt weather as I pulled up to Champagne Tarlant. It seems it’s always sunny when I visit the Tarlants during harvest; maybe because Benoit, Melanie, Micheline and Jean-Marie are always full of love and light! Or maybe because I know I will drink a little
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Champagne Harvest 2015 – honey and grape juice from Chouilly at Champagne Lenoble

  On Friday morning I visited Christian Holthausen and Antoine Massagne at Champagne Lenoble. Their harvest started a few months before the official starting date when the collected the honey from the beehives they keep in the vineyards in Chouilly. “we feel it is important for the biodiversity to reintroduce bees in the vines. We picked
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Champagne Harvest 2015 – talking biodynamics with Jean-Baptiste Lecaillon and Johann Merle of champagne Roederer

  On Thursday I had lunch with Jean-Baptiste Lecaillion and Johann Merle at the Roederer press center at Aÿ. As always we exchanged a lot on biodynamic and organic farming and how it helped Roederer this growing season.  “This year we farmed 75 hectares of the 240 hectares of Roederer’s own vineyards biodynamical. We really see
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Champagne harvest 2015 – tasting juice from Vitry at Champagne Legras et Haas 

 Last night we visited Jérôme Legras, one of the 3 brothers at Legras et Haas. Legras et Haas press 35 hectares during the harvest: 23 hectares from Chouilly – of which 18 hectares are family owned and 12 hectares from Vitry. They vinify a further 25 hectares.  When we arrived in Chouilly, a few trucks
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Champagne Harvest 2015 – Mineral in the making at Pascal Agrapart 

  This morning I visited the Côtes des Blancs for the first time this harvest.  There has been a lot of talk of oidium problems however the grapes looked gorgeous at Pascdl Agrapart. “I am really happy, we are receiving ripe, healthy grows with lots of flavours”, says Pascal When we arrived Chardonnay from Les Biones in
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Champagne Harvest 2015- beautiful biodynamic grapes at Bourgeois Diaz and Françoise Bedel

     Yesterday I sPent the day in Croutes sur Marne, the last village of the Vallée de la Marne when driving to Paris. It is a rare village with 2 biodynamic producers – seeing there only are 25 certified producers in Champagne. We started our day at Jérôme Bourgeois, who was picking Pinot Noir
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Champagne Harvest 2015 – picking Pinot Noir for Vouette and Sorbée

  Yesterday afternoon Bertrand Gautherot’s team were picking Pinot Noir in the Vouette vineyard. I love Bertrand’s Vouette vineyard as you can really see the Kimmeridgean terroir, lots of limestone pebbles in the clay :-)  Bertrand feels that this clay and limestone will better express the character of the 2025 vintage. “The summer has been very
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Champagne Harvest 2015 – a morning with Michel Drappier

 The sunrise was glorious early this morning en route for Urville, where I arrived just about at the same time as the first grapes of the day.  Harvest started with a handful of pickers over the weekend but really got into full swing yesterday. “Last week Monday I panicked, it was 34 degrees, the berries
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Champagne harvest 2015 – the sweet Pinot Noir of the Clos des Goisses

 This afternoon I spent a few hours with Charles Philipponnat in the Clos des Goisses; without a doubt one of the steepest and most beautiful vineyards of the Champagne region.  The harvest started here today and is advancing a lot faster than expected. Charles explaines: “we harvested an extra plot, which was not planned. The
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