Champagne Chartogne Taillet à Merfy

Searching things ... in our soils !

 Generations ago, the men were able to follow the nature. Every day, he came in his vines, and looked at the soil, smelled the earth, touched it, and had the intelligence to understand what kind of things the soil needed.

Now, that knowledge is lost, the men is now proud to show a nude vine, without grass, without “illness”, those that aren’t here to reduce the quality or the quantity of grape, but only to tells to the men what kind of small things it needs to give a very pure and complex fruit. The generation of herbicides killed all our soils everywhere in the world, and we have now, at home, to regain the only sense of our work, let the life come back in our soils to obtain the only good purity and complexity in our wines, the terroir influence.

The vine is an healthy element, which took 3 elements on the Air (N, O, H), and 28 on the soil ! The only 3 elements that the vine took from the Air are used to produce the visual growth of the vine. 1m60 are out of the soil, the plant with its wood and its grape later on the season, and more than 3 meters in the soil that eat 28 elements, that makes purity, complexity, sense … The roots are the only part of the vine that takes the richness of the fruit, the complexity of what you’ll have in your glass. 28 elements, those are present only if the winegrower doesn’t put chemical products, and tries to obtain the grapes the more naturally possible. That’s our only goal, to obtain the purest grapes, to give you the best from our Terroir.

To improve that work, we asked to Claude Bourguignon, certainly the French best specialist of the soils, to come in our parcels. On Friday morning, we made big walls in our vines, to judge the life of the animals that live in our vines, the capacity for the soil to let the water pass without stressing the plant, the different levels of soil, for more than 2 meter deep. That man is here to analyze the soil, and we are here to understand how to improve its condition. Claude works in the most known vines in France, and have a very good experience in the soil analyze, and in wine (He works for the soils of “La Romanée conti” in Burgundy, “Ausone”, “Pavie”, “Clos de Tart”, “Deiss” and other people who didn’t forget that the wine isn’t a proud product, but a complex fruit of a year, or a life of hard work, in the vine ! (And never in the cellar)

French Wine Guide : Bettane Dessauve

Every country have it’s professionals about wine. In France, we have a lot of references to obtain advices about wine. But we also have bad references, who only write notes about communication image, easy drinking wines, and not of what everybody expect from a wine : The unique sensation during the degustation.

The Guide Bettane et Dessauve is certainly one of the best guide concerning wine, its two writers knows everything about each producer in France, and in other regions who produce wine all over the world. This year, they visited our home, vines, and decided to write good notes about our wines, and our terroir. A great honor for us, to be represented in that guide. Mr Bettane, who writes a lot in wine, came home and tried to understand everything about our work, our specialties, our terroir … Something really rare in the wine world, and certainly a very good reason to buy this book. He’s in love with everything that touch food and wine, a “bon vivant” like we call in French.

First Rosé de Saignée experience

At home, we have a real old history of viticulture and wine. My ancesters were working in the vines since the 17th century in Merfy. The roots of our family are here, and we are planted here for a long time. One of our passion, is to found our origins, and one of the best way to find the feeling and the sensation of our ancestor, is to produce wine as they used to do, 200 years before.

For that, I prepared a barrel to put the grapes in it, to make a vinification like my ancestor. I opened it, and put full grapes from one of our oldest parcel of Pinot Noir 45 years old. A high maturity (11°), with freshness and finesse. Once in the barrel, I pressed it with my feets during 45 minutes, and let the wine in contact with the “raffles and pellicules in French …” to obtain a nice red colour. It took 12 hours to obtain this colour. The fermentations begun 3 days after the press, naturally, without any yeasts (only inoculated yeasts, natural from the vines).

That’s our first Rosé de Saignée, for our … own consummation (in a small barrel called feuillette : 114 liters). We only have to wait now, to let the wine grow alone, and to feel, after a long period what our ancestors were tasting, generations and generations before …

Some pictures of the selection of the grapes and of the press :