Bobler/Bubbles: November 2001

30 November, 2001

More grapes to pick in Champagne

Flere druer at plukke betyder mere arbejde til næste høst.

Next vendange we will be allowed to pick more grapes.

INAO - the authority that controls the French AOC's (Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée) - has decreed a new and higher quota of 15.500 kilos of grapes per hectare. At the moment the total quota is 13.000 kilos/hectare.

This does not mean that you should expect more bottles of champagne on a market that these years only grows and grows.

Blocked reserver
The exstra kilos will work as a possible extra blocked reserve. This means that you can pick more grapes and make wine from them. But the authorities - INAO in cooperation with the CIVC - keyorganisation of the champagneindustry - will decide the division between a quota for direct production and a quote for blocked reserves. And at the moment the maximum will remain the 13.000 kilos per hectare, that were picked this year.

So the stage is set for an increase that is not directed towards producing more champagne. It will rather work as a sort of buffer. For the individual winegrower as a protection against loosing the entire yield due to nature catastrophies such as hard summerhail, springfrost, hard winterfrost or disease.

This sort of protection is fine. But it is also a choice, an investment. Since the development of more reserves also means more expenses for instance to pick the grapes long time before you will actually see your money back. It will probably also mean that less grapes will left to rot on the vines, as surplus grapes will normally end their days today.

Blocked reserves regularly released
The last years - where I have followed the business - the authorities have regularly released a part of the blocked reserves for ordinary production as demand has grown or due to problems caused by hail, frost and so on.

Back in 2003 we ourselves lost 40 percent of the potential due to spring frost. But as we were allowed to deblock reserves, we still managed to deliver the full quota for production.

In 2006 the maximum possible amount of grapes - 13.000 kilos per hectare - were harvested and send straight in production. Nothing was kept for reserves.

A quota of 13.000 kilos of grapes per hectare corresponds with a potential of 360 million bottles of champagne. At the moment the sales run up into 318 million bottles this year, so even in an area with good growth there is still a margin between what is produced and what is sold.

På dansk

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27 November, 2001

EU-court: No locally taxed netwine

Thursday a decision of the EU-court kicked champagne at low French prices into the future for an unknown amount of time.

The supreme court of the EU decided that people who buy wines and spirits on the net are due to pay taxes where they live and not where they buy their goods.

A Dane who buys champagne online and directly at the producer's must pay the luxury taxes of Denmark instead of the ordinary tax of France. Too bad for those first-movers who have been fast to use what until the other day was a grey zone rather than illegal.

Personal or online purchase
In its decision the court distinguished between personal purchase and transport of the wine and purchases where a third party deal with the delivery of the bottles.

According to the legislation of the EU a tax is normally due to be payed in the final destination country. There is one exception however, and that is products, bought by private persons for their own personal use which they carry home themselves.

The last condition is not met if you order wines on the net. You also don't meet the requirements if you buy your wines in France personally but arrange with a carrier to deliver them.

The EU-commission, who wanted a settlement in this fundamental case describes the decision as "restrictive", says EU-Observer.

Money at stake
The strict decision on the other hand secures the Treasuries of several EU-countries that in many years have used special taxes on wine and alcohol as a money machine. Lots of money were at stake in countries such as Great Britain, Ireland, Belgium, Denmark and Sweden.

And the British tax authorities are happy about the settlement, Decanter writes. The collegues in other countries are likely to be pleased as well.

More at Dow Jones.

From grey zone to black as the night
The loosers are the consumers who had a chance to get a bigger selction at a lower price, wine merchant's on the net such as 1855.com, and then of course the small winegrowers who could have sold their products directly to the customer without other expensive intermediaries than freight.

Instead winegrowers who keep an eye on a possibly glorious future of net trade must challenge the authorities themselves or wait for better times. Even the decision is not definitive, an interesting saleschannel that until last thursday still dwelled in a legislative grey zone now has moved into the deparment of forbidden.

Personllay I watch this from the side. We only sell champagne to people who picks it up themselves anyway. But the decision remains annoying when you keep an open eye on the possibility of establishing sales of champagne via the net some day.

The decision includes tobacco as well.

På dansk

24 November, 2001

Roundtrip India-Champagne

While big champagnehouses look towards the Indian subcontinent and its growing middle class with matching appetite and economy to buy de luxe articles such as champagne, the eyes of Indian United Breweries are fixed in the opposite direction.

United Breweries, the third biggest group in the beer, wine and alcoholbusiness worldwide, tried to achieve the house of Taittinger as this was up for the highest bid this spring. The seller - American Fund Starwood Capital - preferred to sell to the local bank, Crédit Agricole. Maybe, maybe not, because the employees of Taittinger were already threatening to go on strike. In certain parts of the French society strikes seem to be a bit of popular entertainment. Or maybe the distance between the world of Taittinger champagne and the world of Kingfisher beer is just to big.

Economic patriotism
So the Indians had to swallow the pill: No champagnehouse this time, no matter the bid. Frenchies just really dislike to see their proud heritage - such as Taittinger and Danone - bought by foreigners. Especially from the anglo-saxon corner of the world. Of course Pidgin is not really Oxbridge, but it is English all right when seen from France.

But of course you do not make it all the way to become a worldleader if you just give in that easily... and the Indians have not given up the idea of buying their own champagne bubbles.

One day we will buy a champagnehouse, said Abhay Kewadkar, who is chef de cave in United Breweries, to our local paper, l'Union, some days ago.

United Breweries is apparently still on the path of purchasing, even they did gain a little trophy at the Taittinger-sale, when they bought one of the best sparklers of the Loire-valley, the Bouvet-Ladubay.

Growth in subcontinent
While the Indians keep their eyes open for another possibility of entering Champagne, the champagnehouses move the opposite direction. The economic growth in India knows mainly one direction, and that is upwards. Fast. A new middle class with means develops all along, and of course it is interesting to get a portion of this new purchasing power.

The potential seems big. 10 million Indians drink alcohol, but only 150.000 wine, says secretary-general Jean-Pierre Bonnat of the French chamber of commerce to l'Union.

On top of this a new group of self-supporting women in big cities such as Mumbai, New Delhi and Bangalore, who cannot drink in for instance nightclubs, may still want to demonstrate their new social status by drinking champagne and cocktails, where this is acceptable, in fashionable bars and big hotels.

In the first half of 2006 the Indians bought 90.939 bottles of champagne, a growth of 127 percent. In all of 2005 the corresponding number was 115.983 bottles which was a growth of 150 percent compared with the numbers of 2004.

På dansk

23 November, 2001

A fine taste of oak

New casks must age to get a picturesque patina.

Whether the taste of oak has any right to be in a wine or not is a matter of taste. Whether this taste should originate from casks, that are several hundred years old, or a shovelful of wooden chips thrown into the steel vat will actually produce the same taste, is maybe more than anything else a matter of romanticism.

Though my sense of this does not really go as far as expecting to see these little pieces of oak paddle around in the vats in Champagne as well. But I may lack imagination of course.

So far the guardians of the holy, French AOC's - the authority INAO - is doing its best to keep the chips far away from at least the French AOC'wines. Thank you INAO.

What a strange idea it is to copy the taste of oak casks into steel vats this way. Rather than accepting the fact that wines from oak tastes one way, and from steel another. A matter of fashion, taste and money. (Debate at the European Parlament on the wooden chips).

Heritage from the romans
Originally however, the barrels were a practical way to store everything from cereals and salted fish to wines and other beverages.

The method was invented by the practical and creative romans, that of couse also invented systems to label the barrels, so they had a chance to know what was inside and where it came from. The containers of those days were used as early as the first century AD.

Sometimes barrels are still the best system available. Even the oak casks here in Champagne are not as numerous as before, they are still around, and are often used as part of the marketing as well.

Renewal of oak cask.

Reserve wines in casks
It is just so much more romantic to show patinated, old casks with inserted, new barrel staves at places rather than the huge steel vats, where the result of the annual vendange normally will fermentate the first time. Of course it is.

The casks tell their own story with keywords such as craft, tradition, loving care. Just what you need to ask for a few more euros per bottle than your neighbour.

When it comes to reserve wines, that is, the wines from earlier vintages, that are used to blend the cuvée to reach the right taste, many like to age it in oak casks. Our cooperative for instance, even it has probably not excactly been the forerunner of this wave.

Oak or steel
A champagnehouse like Bollinger age their reserve wine in casks, because it is thougt to be better this way. They use steel vats too though, when it is thought to be as good as casks.

In another top house, Krug, the first fermentation takes place in oak casks, which as far as I know, is rather unique. However, nobody boasts about it. They leave that to the customers. Krug does not boast. People, who invest their money in a bottle of Krug, already know what they get for their money. The proverb "Less is more" is always a winner, if you have the guts.

Not everybody likes this treat though. I have met people who compared their first glass of Krug with a trunk in their mouth. Not excactly what they expected. But maybe the experience is also connected with the fact, that they drank one of the younger Krugs. The speciel style of the house is said to develop to its best after some years. I would love to try it myself.

Now of course we can all do a Krug... just add some wooden chips to your steel vats, and you are already half the way, right?

På dansk

22 November, 2001

The golden plots

Not many leaves still hang on, here Chardonnay at Verzy.

The prices of land in Champagne still rise. That is, for the land that is part of the delimitation.

If you are allowed to grow vines on your land and make champange of the grapes, the daily walk is almost equivalent of walking on gold.

Land and sales grow
In 2005 a hectare of vines in Champagne cost an average of 600.000 euros per hectare, an increase of seven percent since 2005.

A situation, very contrary to that of the rest of France, where vineyards that are a part of one of the other French appellations cost 42.750 euros per hectare, which corresponds with a decrease of 3,9 percent since 2005. In other vineareas - for instance the vin de pays - the picture is even more gloomy. For the average.

The high prices of land in Champagne are connected with the ever rising sales of the last years. In the first half of 2006 with an increase of almost seven percent months even before the traditional peak, Christmas and New Year's Eve.

Difficult return of investment
The expensive plots are connected with the big growth of sales. So we cannot complain, I suppose.

Still, it is sort of inconvenient, because it means, that it is very close to impossible to buy plots for any other than good old Uncle Scrooge. And does he drink champagne at all, I wonder? Some plots are traded anyway, but how the buyers get their investment back, I have not yet understood.

The French equivalent of Kansas. Inside is nephew David.

The French Kansas
There are now obvious disclosures of the wealth here. The vines look like any other vine. The houses are pretty ordinary. The roads full of holes. People work in their boiler suits like they would do in all other vineyards. The French equivalent of the Danish blue Kansas is a bottle-green model with two big zippers, that open the suit completely, so you can just step out of the dirt if necessary.

Actually, I do not have one of these, but that is a big mistake, dear Santa. I use size 38, 40 in France.

With the cars, you start talking. The four-wheel-drives are big, I never saw bigger ones, but then I did not live in the country-side before, and here they actually move on dirt roads with holes full of mud and small or big stones to force. But, there are quite a few Mercedes Benz, BMW's and Audis in our streets too.

And if people can afford to pay more than five euros to get a brioche a the baker, some has got to have money to spend lying rather loose in their pockets. Every second time the brioche is even baked too hard. The other half it is a real treat. And it does become sort of a sport to see if it is one or the other type of Sunday.

På dansk

21 November, 2001

Here we are

Our vines grow in the extreme end of the Côte des Blancs, south of Épernay. It is an area, famous for its Chardonnay. The same that mainly grows on the three hectares of vineyards of our family. We grow mainly Meunier-vines.

There are even a bit of Pinot Noir-vines on the plot with the pretty name Belles Feuilles (beautiful leaves). It is an ancient name... not something we have made up to make it sound good.

But somehow it does actually create a good feeling to know you are to work in the Belles Feuilles, much more than the Vieilles grand méres (old grandmothers) even the latter get some points too for the fun.

The last plot in the family - the Crochettes - has somehow, even after I have taken thousands of photos, not made it into one of them.

Our vineyards are placed in the commune of Soulières, which is autres cru.

Soulières is placed halfway up a slope, on the top there is forest. There is a magnificent view of vineyards and the big plain, the Champagne Crayeuse, covered by fields with wheat, sugar beet, sunflowers and similar crops as far as your eye will get you. Far, that is. According to Alains uncle, he can see a certain tower of a church, known to be 40 kilometers away.

The farm of the family in Soulières, where Alain's mother currently lives. The place has been inhabited probably since the 13th century. The current building is from the middle of the 19th century.

We live in the Grand Cru-village Verzy, placed on the northern slopes of the Montagne de Reims. It is a ridge, about 15 kilometers from Reims. The top is covered with a big forest, the slopes with vineyards. The flat land of the valley below is covered with crops like wheat and sugar beets.

Verzy is also a very old village. The destructions after World War 1 must have been huge, since there are few ancient buildings left.

You can recognice the layout of the ancient village in the way the streets meander and in the closeness of the houses. This must be the nightmare come true of any cityplanner. I find it charming, which is one of the reasons, why we live in one of the old houses (from the middle of the 19th century, with an attic reconstructed with amongst others old telephone posts).

If you take a stroll in the forest, you will see how the floor is full of craters. Holes from grenates. Today everything grows vigorously here, but the terrors of the Grand Guerre as they call it in french can be spotted if you open your eyes and imagination.

The vines of Verzy grow on slopes. Pinot Noir is the main crop in the Montagne de Reims. But the last 20 years the Chardonnay has been in vogue, and it now covers 20 percent of the slopes here.

Blancs de Blancs champagnes made of 100 percent Chardonnay from the Montagne de Reims has a completely different taste than those from the Côte des Blancs. Some people say this is due to terroir, and others say, that terroir only exist in peoples minds. I don't know, but I do know, that the taste of the two is not the same, for whatever reason.

På dansk

19 November, 2001

You sabre champagnes, don't you?

Today I have cut the neck of one of our champagne bottles with a true sabre.

You could perceive this as a rather, violent way, but in fact it is just about as historic as champagne itself. It was the hussars of Napoléon who invented the method. Not that many years after the development of the bubbly beverage really took off.

Napoléon - coming to speak of him - always made a visit in Épernay when he headed towards a new campaign to get supplies from a good friend called Moët.

New knowledge on our bottles
The close encounter with the sabre has also led to several until this moment unknown qualities of our bottles.

For instance they are strong - all champagne bottles are, they must stand a pressure of six bar at least two years - but apparently not all are that strong.

It is rather easy to recognize the joining on the neck of the bottle. This is the weak point of a champagne bottle, so this is the place to hit it hard.

The bubbles don't leave the bottle in no time, even you treat it in this rather rough way.

It is also a question of age and grape variety. The bubbles are typically less aggressive, when the champagne is a bit older, and our bottles happen to be rather venerable for the price. At the moment we sell vintage 2001, which presents you with three years for free. Since the bottle is not more expensive than those, that has only matured the necessary 15 months.

Finally, according to Alain, the grape variety also matters. Pinot Noir typically produces bigger bubbles than Chardonnay.

And the sabering of the bottle? Off the cork in one go, of course.

Faster than a cook's knife
Now when I have actually tried to sabre with a true weapon, I note, that it is a lot faster, than the cook's knifes, we have been using at parties until now.

I even think it is a lot less dangerous with the sabre... we have seen several examples of friends who spends a lot of time moving the knife up and down the neck of the bottle, until the cork finally comes off.

Everybody with just slight experience from a kitchen knows, that you are much more likely to cut yourself on blunt knifes than on sharp ones.

På dansk

Champagnisation

Regularly I am overwhelmed with wry smiles and small or big shrug's of shoulders when friends tell me, how they are very aware, that the cava or crémant they drank last saturday as the appetizer before a three course menu in good company of course was not real champagne.

That you are not allowed to call sparkling wines from other regions than Champagne for champagne is known by just about everybody who drinks wine.

YSL and champagnebrus
And maybe it is not too dramatic that Yves Saint Laurent was not allowed to call his latest perfume for Champagne as it happened some years ago. But when 100 old soft drinks can not keep their own name of Champagnebrus, it makes some people smile. At least a in some areas rather anarchistic people as the Danes.

And the latest work of the CIVC - the organisation that amongst many other things also defends the word champagne all over the world - will probably not make it easier to remain serious.

Even I suppose, in this game you choose either not to move or to shoot on whoever, whatever that moves. In the champagneworld branding is just about everything, and the fierce defense is part of it.

The colour champagne
Lately the lawers now have problems with a certain colour, named champagne by the trendpeople, that make up the names of the latest fashions and their colours. Now, this notion is not completely new anymore, but it is rather new, that it oocurs - now for the second time - in a dictionary from Hachette, one of the big publisher's in France (2005 and 2007-edition).

As if the fashion world is not already a big mouthful, Hachette in the two editions also defines the word "champagniser" as the proces, where you add sugar and yeast to a clear wine to let it fermentate a second time in the bottle.

A simple and good definition of the methode champenoise... However, it is a notion that you are not allowed to use on sparkling wines that originates from other places than Champagne. Which is also why the CIVC does not like to see the word "champagniser" used to designate the proces of creating just any sparkling wine like the definition in the dictionary.

Champagnisation
I suggest to introduce the word "champagnisation".

Definition: A at times rather rigorous defense for an originally geographical name, that later has come to designate products from the area of the same name, typically a product of high quality.

How would the lawyers of the CIVC react to that, I wonder?

På dansk

16 November, 2001

Hip hip Cremant

The sparkling vines from Alsace recently turned the first sharp corner in life. In 30 years the crémant of the region has established itself as the secondbiggest producer of French AOC-bubbly. And the sparklers now make up one fourth of the total sales of AOC-vines from Alsace.

The biggest producer of fizz is still champagne, and there is quite a distance from the 25 milllion annual bottles of Alsace-sparklers to Champagne, where the annual production has passed 300 million bottles. Or between the 10 percent sold for exports of Alsace to the 40 percent of Champagne. But, this AOC of the French extreme East is also a lot younger - and with an accordingly smaller marketingbudget - I presume.

Price differences
Quite often the price of a bottle of wine speaks for itself. With prices in a range between five and 10 euros per bottle a crémant d'Alsace costs less than half of a cheap - which does not mean bad - bottle of champagne.

The champagne brands of independent winegrowers typically are sold at prices starting at 12-13 euros. They are less charged with the prices of heavy marketing than their more exclusive collegues from the caves of Belle Epoque-palaces and Tudor-pastiches of Épernay og Reims, and thus cost only half.

But there is still a big difference between the crémant and the champagne. So what do you get for those extra euros?

Make the most of your terroir
Terroir, I suppose is the main thing you can never change. Your grapes will always be grown in a certain environment when it comes to soils, exposion and climate. In Champagne the chalky soils are praised because it enables the vines grown there to suck the minerals, which contributes to the taste. In Alsace you find a bit of everything: Granite, gneiss and at places also chalk.

The vines grown are Pinot Blanc,Pinot Gris, Pinot Noir, Riesling and Chardonnay, that is all white grape-varieties, where two thirds of the grapes for champagne are actually - surprisingly to many - red grapes. In Alsace you may find their more rare rosé crémant as well, it is made from Pinot Noir-grapes.

The more accurate conditions can be studied at the government authority that controles the AOC's: The INAO

Where it comes to production method, a crémant is made in the same way as a champagne: The methode champenoise. Even you are not allowed to call it so outside Champagne, the process remains the same: Grapes are picked by people, not machines, the second fermentation takes place in the bottle after yeast and sugar is added, and after the prise de mousse - the creation of the bubbles - the content spends a while aging in caves.

You can blend your basewines - that is your still wines made from different grape varieties - for a crémant as well as a champagne, but the unique style of using reserve wines from other vintages for your cuvée is unique for Champagne.

Lagring sur latte
Produktionsmetoden er ellers den samme: Methode champenoise. Selvom det ikke må hedde sådan udenfor Champagne. Mennesker - ikke maskiner - høster druerne, den anden gæring foregår i selve flasken efter tilsætning af gær og sukker, og efter prise de mousse - hvor boblerne dannes - lagrer flaskerne en tid i kældre.

Maturing sur latte
Aprt from that the method of production is the same: The methode champenoise. Even you are not allowed to call it so outside Champagne, the process remains the same: Grapes are picked by people, not machines, the second fermentation takes place in the bottle after yeast and sugar is added, and after the prise de mousse - the creation of the bubbles - the content spends a while aging in caves.

There are not the same requirements when it comes to aging sur latte. The Alsace-crémant must age at least nine months and a champagne at least 15 or 36 months depending whether it is a vintage or not. And the aging is expensive, because you have already had all expenses, and not yet seen even a shade of your money back.

The length of the sur latte-proces is interesting. The dead cells of yeast talk with the champagne, and this develops more complex aromas. You divide them into three levels, where the grapes contribute with the first, the fermentation with the second and the aging with the third level. The longer the conversation, the bigger the contribution from the third layer in the final product. That is a more complex wine, which is excactly one of the elements of some champagnes, praised by champagne-aficionados.

Finally, as you may know prestige can never be sold to expensively, which they are quite aware here.

Golden potatoes
In Denmark they do not buy that one. So far. It is interesting to compare the sales statistics for the crémant d'Alsace and champagne. Amongst the top 7 importers of crémant d'Alsace, Denmark is actually the only country that buys as much crémant d'Alsace as champagne.

Export numbers of the crémant d'Alsace-region, 2005:

(The number in the paranthesis is the export of champagne to same country, same year).

Belgium/Luxembourg: 1.480.000 bottles (3.555.697),
Germany: 1.267.000 bottles (3.179.665),
Denmark: 271.000 bottles (267.318),
The US: 141.000 bottles (7.855.631),
Sweden: 133.000 bottles (446.627),
The Netherlands: 87.000 bottles (845.970),
Switzerland: 71.000 bottles (1.521.737).

Most wine regions of France produce their own crémant.

No doubt it is connected with the fact that the other Alsace-wines are already very popular, and Alsace has also been a big destination for Danish holidaymakers for a long time. But the popularity is of course also linked with the price. Now, I do not know if it makes sense to use the rule of potatosales to conclude anything about champagne, which is a very different type of product. But I will do so anyway.

In Northern Europe the main parameter to sell potatoes is price, in Southern Europe it is quality. You can put it like this: In Denmark potatoes must be cheap to be sold. In France they have to look good.

I wonder if the rule does not apply for sparklers as well. In Denmark you typically drink three bottles when the French would drink one, and this one bottle will at least for still wines always be of a better quality.

But no matter what is better and who decides what is best, people's tastes in sparkling wines differ quite a lot, so I am convinced, that there are buyers for everybody. No matter name, price and complexity.

På dansk

13 November, 2001

Final leaves

When the leaves are gone, it is easier to spot the structure of the plant.

The colourful final of autumn is now more or less a thing of the past. In many vineyards the interlacing branches are naked by now.

A day like this one with rain and rough weather is quite similar to what is just another Danish day in November: Grey, windy and wet. It works on putting the last withering yellowish leaves to the ground.

Time to tidy up
In the vines more and more people work again. They mainly tidy up. Spread horse dung or wooden chips. They remove plants with disease. We ought to do the same soon.

Last year Alain trimmed the ill Meunier-vines completely, whilst I carried the branches to the track on the side of the vineyard. Quite a lot of exercize since we have 36 rows, two thirds are 200 meters long, and I could only carry branches from one plant at a time.

This year Alain want to burn the branches directly in the brouette instead of making a big fire in the end. He even wants to find a used barrel to weld another wheelbarrow. Doing it this way he can work alone.

Diseased branches can be burnt straight in the brouette.

Some has resumed the pruning. When all the leaves are gone, the vine is regarded as lying dormant, and you may begin. Others think it is better to leave the vine in peace a while before you work with it again.

Maintaining the ability of pruning
In the end what matters more - after the last leave has fallen anyway - are your own needs and your possiblities of meeting them. For instance, if you have employees you want to keep them occupied with something all the time... or if you have little time - like us - you may have to start early to be able to finish on time.

I think our idea is to hire somebody to do the pruning. But we will have to do some of it ourselves anyway, because there is quite a lot of restoration in the new plot.

At the moment the plants follow neither one nor the other model, they are somewhere in between. On the long term this is not acceptable and also not very smart, since you in this way do not get the advantages of any system: The Cordon de Royat with its old wood, that supposedly gives interesting flavours to the grapes and the Vallée de la Marne, that is fast to prune.

Anyway, I will have to maintain my abilities of pruning now I have worked so hard to obtain them. Our neighbour - who has 36 years of experience in the vines - regularly reminds me that if I do not practise I will forget. A bit like riding a bicycle. Once you have learned it for good, you will never forget, but you have to maintain it a bit in the beginning. I do believe she is right.

På dansk

10 November, 2001

Buy bubbles in your (British) Aldi

Supermarketfizz is as good or even better than wellknown branded champagnes. Says
Egon Ronay after having blindtasted 30 champagnes.

Mister Ronay, a bit of an institution in a British, gastronomical connection, even says that it would be a mistake to buy a champagne just because it is a known name. The supermarket bubblies are with prices between 14 and 18 pounds a lot cheaper, and they stay the course.

So maybe champagnelovers should pay a visit to the local Sainsbury's, Marks & Spencer or even the German harddicount store, Aldi, next time they are crossing the Channel.

Now on top of the taste there is quite a lot of signalling in a bottle of champagne. So I wonder if it is the same people who buys Tescobubbles and Taittinger or Pommery.

På dansk

08 November, 2001

Pernod ready for prestige bubbles

Forget about Krug, Cristal and Dom. Pernod Ricard wants to develop a new champagne one major step above the usual suspect. Moneywise anyway since the newbie as the new member of the flowerdecorated Belle Epoque line of Perrier-Jouët will be sold for about 1000 euros each bottle.

That is rather good-sized for a champagne, that has not spend decades in the deepest caves of very wellknown houses. To add further to the exclusiveness the new Belle Epoque will be made in very limited amount and only sold in the US, Russia and China. Thus making the exclusivity a not insignificant part of the price.

According to several top people in Pernod Ricard, that acquired Perrier-Jouët last year as part of the Allied Domecq group, customers around the world wants better and more expensive brands. This applies for fashion, cars and also for champagne, they say.

Pernod Ricard became the secondbiggest group of wine- and spiritbrands after the purchase of Allied Domecq last summer. However, the the company remains a dwarf in Champagne compared with the giant LVMH, that counts Moët & Chandon, Veuve Clicquot-Ponsardin and Krug amongst its assets.

På dansk

07 November, 2001

Red wine

Esca-struck vine marked with red paint.

After a walk of kilometres up and down the rows in the vines of Loisy-en-Brie accompagnied by a brush and red paint, we are now able to seperate the diseased vines from the healthy ones.

In the vineyard, that we have taken over by November 1st, approximately 10 percent of the vines carry the Esca. Just like our other plot before the efforts of last year.

Esca is a disease that spreads in many of the vineyards of Europe due to amongst others the global warmning. Only some years ago Esca was not as commonly spread as now where it is rather common to see vineyards like ours with 10 percent diseased plants. Esca slowly kills the vines, and is on top of that quite contagious. Before it was controlled with a chemical that is today forbidden.

Objective: Avoid touching the disease
In 2006 we managed to remove the branches of the Esca-plants before the vendange, where the disease traditionally spreads a lot. This is because you pick the grapes so fast, that you do not always look too carefully at the vine before touching it. And if it is an Esca-carrier this will almost certainly spread the disease further, when you touch the next and healthy plants.

In its first phases the disease shows as the vine gradually looks more and more emaciated. An Esca-vine has only few leaves, produces few grapes, and those, that there are, look sickly and poor. When the leaves have fallen it is practically impossible to tell an Esca-struck vine from a healthy one. With no leaves there are just the naked branches left, and they look the same.

Alain has been in the two vineyards with a red spray to make it possible for us to identify, which vines we must remove later before the pruning begins. This year there will be no time for the heavy machinery, necessary to dig up roots. But at least we can try to prevent that the the diseased branches touch the tools we will use to prune the healthy vines.

View from the new vineyard in Loisy-en-Brie.

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05 November, 2001

Autumnleaves

Pinot Noir-vines end the season with great autumn colours.

The colours of the vines just do not get any greater than right now in early November. It is time to enjoy if you enjoy green changing into all kinds of red and orange. The show does not last long.

As we drove through the Côte des Blancs today, it was obvious, that the dominating Chardonnay-vines are close to reveal just about everything that is under the summerwall of leaves. Now, the events of the season for Chardonnay normally are some days ahead of the two Pinot, when it comes to the burst of buds as well as the falling leaves.

In some plots just a few withered leaves are what is left of the leaves. In other plots wind or cold temperatures is needed for the last crescendo of the autumn symphony, where the last leaves of the season final fall.

More grapes mature
Where the leaves fall, grapes become more visible. Some rows have never been harvested... when enough grapes to meet the quota have been picked, whatever is left on the vines will stay until the pruning... Many other places the generous sunshine of October has matured more but often rather small grapes.

Grapes that have matured since the vendange late September.

Somewhere between the Grand Cru-villages Avize and Le-Mesnil-sur-Oger an indeed very early bird has alreay begun the pruning. It is easy to recognice the slim column of smoke, that winds its way up from the fire in the brouette. This special type of wheelbarrow, made by an old oil barrel, is used by lots of vineyardworkers to burn branches during the pruning.

Early pruning
Even in a few vineyards in the area of Verzy people has begun to prune. However it is very early, since there are still lots of leaves left on the vines. The plant is lying dormant only from the time where the leaves fall and until the sap starts to rise in March.

However, not everybody has the choice. It all depends how many vines you have and whether you have to do it in your spare time or not.

The brouette.

Traditionally the best pruning is in March, because the plant is bothered less by the action. You should wait at least until the Saint-Vincent, the patron saint of the winegrowers, who is celebrated on January 21st. We will begin to prune after New Year.

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04 November, 2001

Cristal for Posh and Becks

The top champagne Cristal has newly named customers in the people-class. Time will reveal if soccer- and poppounds will turn out more acceptable than American hiphop dollars for Louis Roederer.

It is the favourite gossip couple of the Brits - David and Victoria Beckham - who recently asked to have Cristal rather than the Dom Ruinart that was already put on ice in the hotel suite of the couple. The latest on Posh and Becks fed small talk columns all around the world... here as well... after all it is champagnegossip.

Now, it is not that Dom Ruinart is not a great champagne. The house of Ruinart likes to emphasize that it is the most ancient of its kind in the region, and the Dom happens to be their topcuvée, that is the counterpart of the Cristal of Louis Roederer. But different people, different tastes... this cannot be discussed. Should you do so anyway, you are at risk of ending up on the ultimate hate list of an entire industry before I can pronounce the name Jay-Z.

This is what the manager of Louis Roederer, Frédéric Rouzaud, has probably learned after he maybe-maybe not renounced the publicity, that Cristal - originally the exclusive brand of the Russian czars - got for free because of the taste of rapper Jay-Z. I am quite convinced, that the Roederer-manager no matter his personal attitude towards the pop- and soccer-couple will stay quiet this time. Should he be asked.

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02 November, 2001

Growing weeds or vines

Vineyard with grass? Grass field with vines?

An evening in the company of old documents has made Alain order a lawyer for a little trip to the vines. That is, to the vineyard, we have just taken over, because it is in such a pour state. A walk there could give you the idea that it is the juicy green weeds, we grow, more than the rather poor vines.

So next Monday the Monsieur l’Expert will with his own two eyes verify, that the vineyard really is in a very miserable state, and after the verification draw up a document to be signed and stamped.

A document, that will serve as our proof, should the former tenant - we took over the plot on November 1st - get the idea to ask for the amount of money you may be entitled to, when a tenancy stops. But this - amongst other things - is of course linked with the state of the plot.

Not that there is much to doubt, but since we don't want to risk time on any possible discussions, we prefer to be safe. At times it is okay to spend an evening reading old documents. Since this is how you learn such things.

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