Champagne Chartogne Taillet

It’s time to sow !

The vines and the soils need it ! This year we will sow some grass, and some vegetables on the vines. The advantages of the vegetables is that it takes the nitrogen of the air to give it to the soil. The nitrogen isn’t animal nitrogen but mineral. The vines need every years nitrogen, that’s why we are trying to find some for it naturally. The second advantage of the vegetables and of the grass is that they allow the roots of the vines to go deeper and deeper to give them energy, life and water at higher “ratios”. That’s only a winter work, after we’ll destroy what we sow to avoid the concurrence between the grass and the vines.

Some pictures of the sow:

The aeration of the soil

The work of the vinegrower is definitively a work of accompaniment; nature grows during the whole year and needs the best conditions to show its best face. But the vine is not the only piece of nature which interests the vine grower, the ground also plays a very important role in the evolution of the maturity of the fruit. It’s one of the most important factor, it is the energy of the plant, its friend and its support. The soil is always working, it develops life during the whole year, and even when the vine is sleeping during the winter. That’s why our work, today, is to help it to breathe.

That’s why I now begin to plough (plow) the vines, to air the earth and to allow it to develop the microorganism.

This morning the time was cold ! My fingers had difficulties to push up the button of the camera, but ... wish you'll find them ... hum ... interesting :)
On the first one you'll see the difference between a vine which wasnt plough (left side), and one that had been plough (one the right side), and on the second one the machine that helps me to "shake" and return the earth, soils.

The 2006 grape harvest !

What a surprising year. Nature will always astonish me. July was a very hot month, with some fine rains which let foresee a very beautiful year, but august changed totally our point of view, we received a lot of rain ! However our opinion is influenced by our experiment. The nature is a model of adaptation, the wineyard dont wait for a special month or a special period to grow.

The rain of August however started the appearance of the rot in the vines. The rot began in the early august, and gathered on certain grapes located in the middle of the plant. The grapes in the foot and in top were not touched by the disease. Thanks to the located apparition of the rot, the selection of the grape during the grape harvest was more easy.

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We begins with the Meunier cépage, the first alcoholic degree was a 10,2 with 9,3 gr acidity. The vines had 30% of rot and we made a very strict selection of the grapes, with a picking team composed of 12 ladies. The meunier is often ready before the chardonnay and the Pinot noir on our soils. During 3 days, we picked up our Meunier, with a average degree over 10° and 8,9 acidity.

After it, we picked the Chardonnay, a big step during the grape harvest. In the press, all have to be cleaned perfectlty to loose the colour of the Meunier pressed before. This cépage had a real nice potential. The taste we have done at the exit of the press was really enthousiastic. The degrees were less similar between the different parcels. Our smallest degree was 9,4° from a young vine, and the higher was 10,6 from the oldest parcel. The acidity was always high wich was surprising, but certainly due to the middle temperature we had this year. The weather wasent too high, acidity was not degraded by strong heats.

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The 4 last days we picked the Pinot noir. The degree was surprising ... not in the better way, we were accustomed to obtain degrees higher than 10 but for the pinot, the average was rather of 9,5°. The grapes were ready, the colour of the pips was nice, and the bay of the grapes was ready to fall. 95% of our Pinot noir were nice, with an average degree quite good (9,5°), nice flowers in mouth. But last harvest was less amusing. We did not press the 5% Pinot last which in one day turned.

The grape harvest lasted 10 days, and have been lucky with a nice weather. The tasting of the juices coming out of the press were pleasant, but we always prefer to see how the wine evolves in time and passes the fermentations. The acidity and the maturity of the grapes are surprising. But that is not enough! And we wait to see how nature will make move the things! What we can see is that the acidity is high and the quality of the first juices is enthousiastic with a low level of malique acidity. All the caracteristics of a Millesime !

Some pictures of the grape harvest :

The team of grape pickers in a Meunier vine.

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This year we made a very strick selection of the grapes to leave the rot on the soil.

The chardonnay cépage, ready to be pressed.

The first press is ready !

Men at work !

The washing of the cases

The most important date of the year !

Happy birthday grapes, it’ll be soon time for the grape harvest.

There is a day and only a day to pick up the grapes. Too early, the grapes wil not be ready, the maturity is too small and we could loose a lot of taste in the juices. Too late, and the grapes will loose all their taste or begin to ferment on the vines.

There are a few methods to decide the date :

-         The degree, we press about 15 grapes and see the degree of the juices thanks to a refractometre

-         The colour of the pips, green, the grapes arent ready, brown it’s too late. The better colour is red for a perfect result

-         How the bay is attached. If the bay falls easily, the grapes are ready to be pressed.

This is an important work for a winegrower, he works all the year to obtain nice fruits given by the nature. He observe the vines during the year, he help the plant to grow up in the better conditions, and third, he always observe its vineyards to support it in its passionnating work of life.

Here is an example of what we make to determine the date of the grape harvest in each parcel.

First you can see the name of the parcels, second the cépage, third the degree (it was one week before the grape harvest), and fourth the pourcentage of pourriture due to the botrytis in each parcel.

Hail in champagne !

This year wasnt really nice for some winegrowers. 1800 hectars of vines were destroyed by hail during the night of the 4^th July and 680 hectars were 100% destroyed.

By chance, hail circumvented Merfy and touched only a small part of our southern vignets (about 5% of our production). But the winegrowers of the neighbourhood villages werent as lucky. Thil, Saint Thierry, Pouillon and other small villages have serious damage. Some vines were severaly damaged, around 100% of their production !

The grapes and the leaves were lost and the wood bursted because of the shock of the impact. The winegrowers loosed all their production for minimum 2 years if they will not be obliged to tear off the vines.

We’re trying to help them as much as we can but the mission is almost impossible.

Some pictures of these damages :

[Come back] The 2005 grape harvest

Hi all !

Here are the pictures of the 2005 grape harvest.
40 people were with us to pick up the best grapes of our vines.

The wether of this grape harvest was a nice surprise, for the vignes and for the workers. The weight of the grapes was about 140 grammes. That’s a high weight wich can be a good thing for the grape harvest. As the grapes were fat, we neednt a lot of grapes to obtain the 4000kg in the press. So we had less grapes and less raffles (green part or wood of the grapes wich could cause some problems of a high quantity of tanins in the moût). Normally, too fat grapes can be dangerous, but if the grapes are gorged of sugar with a nice maturity, that’s a good thing.
Concerning the quality, the maturity was good. A nice level of sugar with some acidity. Our goal isnt to aim a too high level of acidity. We’re the region of France that have natural acidity as we’re on the North of France. Even if the acidity is “low” for juces of Champagne, that’s not a problem. Moreover if we try to have a champagne produced to be drink with food.

For 2005 the quality of the grapes was good, with a good maturity (10,2% vol for the Pinot noir, and 10% for the chardonnay and the Meunier) and acidity. The only thing we could regret is that there were too much quantity of grapes in the vines. Even if we tried to reduce the quantity during the “taille” and the “ebourgeonnage”

But but this year stay a very good year for us, thanks to a very nice weather and a minimum of problems (illness, parasits) in the vignes.

For 2006  we made a very strict "taille" and "ebourgeonnage" to reduce the quantity of grapes. We also prepared the vines during the palissage, to permit to the wind to pass throug the plants, and avoid pourriture.

But the nature is the only one who will teach us how the grapes will be ! We only help the nature to produce quality, and for the rest the nature is the only reference :)

Some pictures of the 2005 grape harvest :