Champagne Chartogne Taillet

Wood and Wine.

We are glad to be the owners of a very old parcel of meunier (50 years old) called Les Barres. The plant are non grafted “plant francais or vieilles vignes Francaises” which is now very rare. The soil is Chalk covered with a sandy part.

I decided this year to create a new cuvée with the grapes of this wineyard, and make the vinification in oak.

For this vintage, we will let the wine grow alone. The richness of the wine must be preserved, this is why the SO2 amounts were to the minimum reduced, 2 grams per hectolitre and a 14 hours washing with an air protection. The transfer of the juices is made by direct transfer without use of pumps to avoid disturbing the wine. All fermentations are carried out without sowing, completely naturally (uninoculated fermentation). We’ll not make a filtrage for this wine dont to loose the essential richness of the wine.

The greatest satisfaction for a winegrower is to discover the true taste of its vines. It is what we try to discover this year with this wine.

Barrels in the cellar!

In a more natural way of vinification and oenology, we bought this year some new barrels. The vinification of this wines in these barrels will be at 100% natural (Alcoholic and malolactic fermentations).

Our barrels comes from the region, the producer of barrels of Krug or Bollinger Champagne who lives and works in a small village near Merfy (Cauroy les Hermonville). I decided to choose barrels with different ages and capacity to obtain different flavors for each of them : 2 barrels of 300 liters, one new and the other who already received two wines, and 2 other barrels of 228 liters capacity : One and two years aged.

The vines are prepared to produce the less grapes for the better quality ... In this barrels, I want to produce a real natural Champagne, with the real taste of the terroir. Wait and see !

Some pictures about the preparation of the barrels :

The 27th, it was THE disgorgement day !

5 days before ... 37 degrees

3 days before ... 35 degrees

The day before ... The sun was also shining

During this month, we decided to begin to work at

6 o’clock

in the morning. Because, during the afternoon, the sun was too hot to work outside. But for the disgorgement there was always a problem. We couldn’t change the date of this work, and in

Champagne

, the winegrowers couldn’t disgorge, or something like 500 bottles a day ! When the weather is too hot, there is a formation of foam and the bottles overflow.

There aren’t a lot of winegrowers who have their own materiel of disgorgement. The prestation is a good solution, the machines are always build for quality and rapidity, but the date have to be planned two weeks before ... The machines are coming in a truck and needs 1 hour to be installed in our storeroom. That’s why we tried to begin earlier than we used to, near 5 o’clock in the morning.

By chance for us, the 27 was a good day, it was raining with a small wind which was also good for the vines! A real opportunity for us, and for all those who disgorged that day. I spoke during this week with other winegrowers who had a lot of difficulties to disgorge.

It was certainly the only day of this month that could be perfect for this work. And we had it!

Here you can see some pictures of this wonderful day!  The video is coming soon :)

 

.

.