The green vineyard

Green is not always a colour that pleases the eye. The weeds are unfortunately very vigorous in our new vineyard, and that promotes disease.

As we wait for the first statements about the still wines and their potentials, there is new work coming up in the fields.

We are to take over a new plot at the end of this month. It is situated above the one we already deal with. This weekend Alain has spend some time to check it out a bit more thoroughly. As expected it is a rather sad sight.

5000 square metres of misery
The new plot consists of 42 rows that are 100 metres long, all in all 5000 square metres with about 3500 vines, that are badly pruned. 42 rows full of weeds, and around 12 percent of the plants affected by the disease esca. Plants, that must be removed as fast as we can.

With kilometres of wires and new posts in a condition, that will hardly survive meeting the tracors next spring, and on top of that the soil covered with weeds as dense and thick as a fashionable carpet from the 1970'ies, there is work for the next years to put this plot at the same level as the other one.

And I have not even mentioned the pruning, which you can call creative, if you want to be really nice.. To bring it up-to-date with the rules, that pruning-teacher Stéphanie tought me at the school in Avize, will take years.




Grapeharvest finally ended
However, no matter the 42 rows look sad right now, they still represent an important step for us on the way of getting our own names on the labels of our champagne. Quite an event, coincideng with the longest grapeharvest as long as anyone can remember.

It finally ended yesterday. Officially and with lots of sun. However, we have not seen anyone picking grapes the last two weeks, neither in the Côte des Blancs nor the Montagne de Reims. But it has been possible and allowed to press until yesterday, which has made the grapeharvest of 2006 almost the double of normal years when it comes to number of days.

It began on September 7th at Sezanne in the southern part of the Côte des Blancs, that last communes only began on September 23th, which is unusual, and is linked with the weather of 2006.

The expections are good with a sugar level at 10 percent and a acidity number of 7. I have seen different opinions regarding the possibilities of having yet another millésime-vintage. Some says that the potential is not good enough, others that it is fine. We shall see. As spring approaches.


Seen from above the new vineyard looks nice. But it possesses quite a few horrible details.

På dansk

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