12 December, 2001

Meet the Yellow widow in Illum

More than 12 years ago I saw my first champagnebar. It is situated in Reims, just across the street from the big, central Place d'Erlon, and it is not excactly high tech. Actually it reminds me more of the kind of little more or less stationary chariots where you buy your hotdogs in Copenhagen. Just a little bit more Art Déco chic since this after all is France. Anyway, it is not sausages but champagne à la coupe, they hand over the counter.

There are lightyears between this and the ultratrendy space, that Copenhagen department store Illum has introduced to fit the galloping Danish consumption and the luxury trend of the time. However only in December. Danes still mainly drink champagne in the Christmas- and New Year's-season as it is anyway quite general all over the world.

It is the French behemoth of luxuries LVMH (Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy), who is behind the initiative. Which is why you can only buy the champagnes of LVMH, and only some of them. Names as Ruinart and Krug, that also belong to this economical giant of the champagne, are not available.

The classic Yellow Widow, as the Veuve Clicquot-Ponsardin is popularly known in Denmark, is not difficult to find in December. It is still the sure and often also lonely brand, you will find if you buy your wines in supermarkets such as Foetex and Kvickly in the days before Christmas. So this is just another possibility of trying the lady, even a lot of Danes do not even like the taste. In Illum they can try out the Moët & Chandon instead or even upgrade to a Dom Pérignon. Prices per glass according to AOK begin at 75 kroner(10 euros).

På dansk

Copyright: The copyright for text and photos at bobler.blogspot.com belongs to Solveig Tange. You may use my articles, photos or parts of them for non-commercial use and if I am credited as the author. Feel free to link to this site but not in your own frameset please.

11 December, 2001

Champagne the granny way

The appellation champagne is defended tooth and nail by the lawyers of the organisation of the champagne industry, the CIVC. It is easy to understand - for me anyway - that they do not want to share name and glory with sparkling wines from other parts of the world. It is more complicated for my mind to follow for instance their wish to eliminate champagne as the name of a colour.

I should like to know how these interpreters of clauses would react to this charming application of one of the inhabitants of a true Granny's garden.

"If you want to prepare Champagne, you will only have to add two teaspoons of this must and mix it with a bottle of French wine, bottle it and shake it well". (My translation).

The mentioned juice is made of white currant. A berry, I mainly know from old gardens, especially in the white version. Some people think, that champagne is sour dishwater. I wonder if that could be an effect caused by the juice of the currant?

The recipe originates from the "Handbook of the Housewife", 1903. You will find the entire recipe here (is it not typical that it will be in a Norwegian webpage that a thing so inadmissible will turn up?) ;-D

På dansk

Copyright: The copyright for text and photos at bobler.blogspot.com belongs to Solveig Tange. You may use my articles, photos or parts of them for non-commercial use and if I am credited as the author. Feel free to link to this site but not in your own frameset please.

09 December, 2001

Esca up in smoke


Cut branches burn in the brouette, Loisy-en-Brie.

The day after the tornado is quiet and beautiful. Decembersunny and made in heaven to go work in the vines.

Alain spends most of the light hours of saturday in Loisy-en-Brie in the very extreme end of the Côte des Blancs to get rid of Esca-infested Meunier-vines in our two plots.

It is some weeks ago now, that he spent some hours spraying the diseased plants with red colour. Today it would have been impossible to distinguish diseased plants from healthy ones. Once grapes are gone and leaves fallen, the naked branches look quite alike no matter their condition.

Alain removes all branches so that only the stump remains. The entire root is a different story that cannot be removed without the intervention of a lot more horsepower, so for the time being they are left where they are.


Red alert: An Esca-diseased plant to be removed.

The two plots all together make up a bit more than one hectare. In one day Alain removes almost 70 percent of the diseased plants. There are a lot more in the new plot, that we have received back in a rather poor condition.

We would have preferred to see no more Esca in the old plot, since we used quite some time last year to remove diseased plants with roots and this year to replant more than 400 replacements.

But this is not how it all went, and it is a destiny we share with a lot of others that inside and outside Champagne fight this infectious disease as well. It is spreading rapidly these years because of the warmer weather and because the chemical to fight it has been forbidden in some years now.

På dansk

Copyright: The copyright for text and photos at bobler.blogspot.com belongs to Solveig Tange. You may use my articles, photos or parts of them for non-commercial use and if I am credited as the author. Feel free to link to this site but not in your own frameset please.

08 December, 2001

First, second, third...

Champagne is normally a rather expensive pleasure, especially when you buy it at Danish prices. Whether it is shops on the net, distinguished old wine merchants or gastronomical temples, most sell the fizz at rather elevated costs.

Instead why not try a bid for bubbly on an auction on the net?

Right now and a few days into the future, the netauction QXL boasts two auctions of champagne. One - Mumms flagship, Cordon Rouge - is at the moment at a price that as far as I can tell is a bit of a finding in Denmark. (To compare 220 kroner in Billund Lufthavn)

I am less sure, that it goes for second bottle too, even it is in another class - the house of Ruinarts middle level - the "R", in a magnumbottle - and that goes for the price too.

If the price of the bottle and freigth runs up in something more expensive than you initially expected, why don't you comfort yourself with the fact, that you in any case have a true royal taste. Something that surely cannot be bought too expensive?

På dansk

Copyright: The copyright for text and photos at bobler.blogspot.com belongs to Solveig Tange. You may use my articles, photos or parts of them for non-commercial use and if I am credited as the author. Feel free to link to this site but not in your own frameset please.

07 December, 2001

Big and small enlargements


This little vegetable garden at Verzy could be planted with vines instead of pumpkins and sunflowers.

Enlarge or not to enlarge.

Much is said and written in the local press, in the professional weeklies, and in meetings for wineprofessionals. Should, should not.

On one hand, it is very important to be able to deliver champagne, when the market is there. On the other it is a bad idea to enlarge, if the customers will not continue to demand still more and more champagne.

No guarantees
Guarantees of course cannot be given. It does take a while to enlarge the supplies of champagne: The vines will only grow the maximum amount of grapes after three years, and on top of that the champagne must age at least 15 months. You've got to be some sort of a gambler.

The chairman of the independent winegrowers, Patrick le Brun, cannot stop repeating - it seems - that there so far is a good margin between the current sales of champagne (317 million bottles the last 12 months) and the amount of bottles that will be sold in two-three yeares (360 million bottles).

But when the INAO-responsible in the champagnecapital of Épernay, Eric Champion, says to the local paper l'Union, that "there are no possibilities of development", because all land is already planted, it still gives second thoughts.
And INAO - the ministerial organisation, that controls the AOC's(Appellation d'Origine Controlée) - is currently working on a report of the possibilites of enlarging the territory.

Work of experts
Five experts - a geologist, a geographer, a historian, an agronomist and a expert in plants have since 2003 examined the land in the communes with vines. The report will contain information about the history of each commune and its suitability as supplier of land to grow vines for champagne. The final result is expected in 2009.

It is expected that the deparment of Aube in Southern Champagne will have quite a few hectares acknowledged to join the appellation. Aube had a lot less than the more known - when it comes to champagne - department of Marne, when some vines were replanted in the 1960'ies.

With the very high prices of land at the moment combined with the very good sales of champagne, it is of course extremely interesting to buy some of these hectares. Rather at before- than after-prices.

1.500 difficult hectares
In the meantime 1.500 hectares, already acknowledged for growing vines for champagne but not used, actually do exist.

Well, that is, the land is very much in use. As cemeteries, forests or a small vegetable gardens as the picture above shows.

And if you are more into chewing the seeds of sunflowers or eating pumpkins in the long winter, I suppose you are better off with Grand Cru-vegetables than grapes. But each time I pass this place I cannot help thinking: Who is this person, who undauntedly leaves the bubbles to all the others and grows tomatoes, strawberries and pumpkins instead.

På dansk

Copyright: The copyright for text and photos at bobler.blogspot.com belongs to Solveig Tange. You may use my articles, photos or parts of them for non-commercial use and if I am credited as the author. Feel free to link to this site but not in your own frameset please.

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

Copyright: The copyright for text and photos at bobler.blogspot.com belongs to Solveig Tange. You may use my articles, photos or parts of them for non-commercial use and if I am credited as the author. Feel free to link to this site but not in your own frameset please.

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

Copyright: The copyright for text and photos at bobler.blogspot.com belongs to Solveig Tange. You may use my articles, photos or parts of them for non-commercial use and if I am credited as the author. Feel free to link to this site but not in your own frameset please.

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

Copyright: The copyright for text and photos at bobler.blogspot.com belongs to Solveig Tange. You may use my articles, photos or parts of them for non-commercial use and if I am credited as the author. Feel free to link to this site but not in your own frameset please.

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

Copyright: The copyright for text and photos at bobler.blogspot.com belongs to Solveig Tange. You may use my articles, photos or parts of them for non-commercial use and if I am credited as the author. Feel free to link to this site but not in your own frameset please.

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

Copyright: The copyright for text and photos at bobler.blogspot.com belongs to Solveig Tange. You may use my articles, photos or parts of them for non-commercial use and if I am credited as the author. Feel free to link to this site but not in your own frameset please.

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

Copyright: The copyright for text and photos at bobler.blogspot.com belongs to Solveig Tange. You may use my articles, photos or parts of them for non-commercial use and if I am credited as the author. Feel free to link to this site but not in your own frameset please.

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

    Copyright: The copyright for text and photos at bobler.blogspot.com belongs to Solveig Tange. You may use my articles, photos or parts of them for non-commercial use and if I am credited as the author. Feel free to link to this site but not in your own frameset please.

  • 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

    Copyright: The copyright for text and photos at bobler.blogspot.com belongs to Solveig Tange. You may use my articles, photos or parts of them for non-commercial use and if I am credited as the author. Feel free to link to this site but not in your own frameset please.

    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

    Copyright: The copyright for text and photos at bobler.blogspot.com belongs to Solveig Tange. You may use my articles, photos or parts of them for non-commercial use and if I am credited as the author. Feel free to link to this site but not in your own frameset please.

    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

    Copyright: The copyright for text and photos at bobler.blogspot.com belongs to Solveig Tange. You may use my articles, photos or parts of them for non-commercial use and if I am credited as the author. Feel free to link to this site but not in your own frameset please.

    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

    Copyright: The copyright for text and photos at bobler.blogspot.com belongs to Solveig Tange. You may use my articles, photos or parts of them for non-commercial use and if I am credited as the author. Feel free to link to this site but not in your own frameset please.

    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

    Copyright: The copyright for text and photos at bobler.blogspot.com belongs to Solveig Tange. You may use my articles, photos or parts of them for non-commercial use and if I am credited as the author. Feel free to link to this site but not in your own frameset please.

    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.

    På dansk

    Copyright: The copyright for text and photos at bobler.blogspot.com belongs to Solveig Tange. You may use my articles, photos or parts of them for non-commercial use and if I am credited as the author. Feel free to link to this site but not in your own frameset please.

    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.

    På dansk

    Copyright: The copyright for text and photos at bobler.blogspot.com belongs to Solveig Tange. You may use my articles, photos or parts of them for non-commercial use and if I am credited as the author. Feel free to link to this site but not in your own frameset please.

    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.

    På dansk

    Copyright: The copyright for text and photos at bobler.blogspot.com belongs to Solveig Tange. You may use my articles, photos or parts of them for non-commercial use and if I am credited as the author. Feel free to link to this site but not in your own frameset please.

    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.

    På dansk

    Copyright: The copyright for text and photos at bobler.blogspot.com belongs to Solveig Tange. You may use my articles, photos or parts of them for non-commercial use and if I am credited as the author. Feel free to link to this site but not in your own frameset please.

    31 October, 2001

    First fall for the young ones


    Most of the new Meunier-vines have survived the summer. October 2006.

    Six months ago we planted 425 new Meunier-vines in the plot at Loisy-en-Brie.

    They got some good mould tucked around the roots. But since they have had to deal with wind and weather and disease on their own. And most - about 90 percent - have survived.


    August 2006, Loisy-en-Brie.

    The rest has been overcome by disease. Some were eaten by rabbits, others were attacked by the disease oïdium I do not know if that is too many. From a statistical point of view that is. But it adds up in about half a day of wasted work which is already annoying.

    A strong plant
    Young vines like these do not yet produce grapes like the fully grown vines. Grapes grow on one year old shoots, that will grow from the buds that already by now have been created. Even they may not yet be very visible.

    However, the young plants will not produce any grapes for the next vendange. During the first years of the life of a plant, the aim of the pruning is to secure good and strong wood. By removing most of the buds you help the young plant to focus on its own growth rather than producing fruits.

    Only the third year you leave so many buds that the young vine will produce a bigger amount of grapes.




    April 2006, Loisy-en-Brie.

    A fully developed vine will produce around 1,2 kilos of grapes. You use 1,6 kilos of grapes to produce a bottle of champagne.

    På dansk

    Copyright: The copyright for text and photos at bobler.blogspot.com belongs to Solveig Tange. You may use my articles, photos or parts of them for non-commercial use and if I am credited as the author. Feel free to link to this site but not in your own frameset please.

    28 October, 2001

    007 drinks Bollinger once again


    You find the name of Bollinger outside vineyards in the best areas of Champagne - the Grand and Premier Cru.

    In a few weeks James Bond will be let loose on the white screen for the 21st time. And I guess, it will be known by most, that Her Britannic Majesty's secret agent has a very exclusive taste when it comes to everything from sportscars to ladies, from electronic gadgets to alcoholic drinks. Champagne as well.

    Which is why, James Bond - this time personified by Daniel Craig - in "Casino Royale" for the 10th time will swallow a champagne from a house, that is usually mentioned with much devotion, namely the house of Bollinger. (Find the accurate match of movies and cuvées here.)

    The right cuvée for the occasion
    Quite suitable for the occasion Bollinger is bringing out its latest version of the cuvée, Grande Année these days. And I'll eat my hat if it will not be the very same, that our superhero will gulp down on sheets of silk in a few week's time.

    This version of the Grande Année is from 1999. It is a blend of 17 different clear wines (crus). 82% from Grand Cru-areas and the rest from Premier Cru-areas. 63% are Pinot Noir-wines and the rest Chardonnay-wines. I'll bet it is wonderful. If you like the style.

    Because certainly not everybody shares this taste in champagnes. A lot of Danes - according to my not statistically representative experience - may prefer a champagne with slightly more sugar in the dosage, and with more Chardonnay-grapes in it than you often find in the champagnes of Bollinger. There is surely a champagne for each taste.

    Brits love Bollinger
    But agent 007 likes his Bollinger. Which is pretty good marketing, since James Bond in the text of the original novel drinks a glass of champagne four times, and none of them contains Bollinger. Check it out here.

    In Great Britain the dry style of Bollinger has been popular since the days of Queen Victoria, and the taste of James Bond just adds to the publicity of the house, that is one of the last independant and family-owned in Champagne.

    If you'll scratch my back, I'll scratch yours... Maybe that is why, visitors to the production facilities of Bollinger can discover a big collection of movieposters on the white walls in several of rooms. You are free to guess which movies.


    The elegant villa of Bollinger in the village of Aÿ, close to Épernay, one of the capitals of champagne. The other is Reims.

    "Casino Royale" has its first night on November 17th. As a Dane I am looking forward to see Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen as super villain.

    På dansk

    Copyright: The copyright for text and photos at bobler.blogspot.com belongs to Solveig Tange. You may use my articles, photos or parts of them for non-commercial use and if I am credited as the author. Feel free to link to this site but not in your own frameset please.

    27 October, 2001

    First starlings are here


    Flocks of starlings at Avize, October 2005.

    I have seen the first starlings circle over the lower vineyards of Verzy.

    That autumn is now here is sure. The floor in our garage does not really dry any more. The dew falls heavily at night, and we now see the sun so briefly in our plot, that the ground does not stand a chance to dry before the day is over. Even we still have the most beautiful October sunshine you can imagine.

    Yesterday I spend all afternoon talking in the kitchen of a friend. As we around 5 o'clock PM peeped out of her front door, it felt almost like a crime having stayed inside all afternoon on a day with temperatures reaching almost 20 degrees Celsius.

    In Northern Scandinavia the temperature now spends more time below than above zero, and I suppose this is what has persuaded the flocks of birds to go South. The starlings are the first migrating birds I see this year.

    They eat the grapes that are left on the vines, and usually stay until cold weather forces them to move further south. But with the currently mild temperatures they may be tempted to have a long stay this year.

    In English

    Copyright: Ophavsretten til tekst og billeder på bobler.blogspot.com tilhører Solveig Tange. Mine artikler, billeder eller dele af dem må ikke gengives andre steder, uden at jeg fremstår som forfatteren. Du er velkommen til at linke, sålænge du ikke åbner i eget framesæt.

    25 October, 2001

    Add some wooden chips


    Wooden chips may not be very pretty, but it is practical as cover when you work in a vineyard.

    The last driving a tractor through the vineyards this year are expected to have two
    consequences.

    The first is to cover the floor of the vineyard thoroughly with a load of wooden chips. That should create severe conditions for the very vigorous weeds, that currently have a great time in 42 rows of vines, that we will take over by November 1st. We would rather see less of the current green happiness in the years to come.

    The chips will also make it more easy to walk up and down the rows without sliding. When there is a lot of weeds, this collects the moisture, thus making the weeds very slippery in the autumn and winter seasons.


    We would prefer to see less of this green splendour and want to cover it under a layer of wooden chips as soon as possible.

    Secondly a tractor going up and down the same 42 rows may have some less nice consequences for the rickety combination of wires and posts, that are supposed to help the vines to stand up in the light. I wonder if it may not in reality in this case actually be the vines that holds the wires. A terrible thought.

    Driver and vehicle is ordered. As for the rest there is only hope and prayers left.

    In English

    Copyright: Ophavsretten til tekst og billeder på bobler.blogspot.com tilhører Solveig Tange. Mine artikler, billeder eller dele af dem må ikke gengives andre steder, uden at jeg fremstår som forfatteren. Du er velkommen til at linke, sålænge du ikke åbner i eget framesæt.



    You can still find lots of grapes that have matured late. They taste wonderful.

    23 October, 2001

    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

    Copyright: The copyright for text and photos at bobler.blogspot.com belongs to Solveig Tange. You may use my articles, photos or parts of them for non-commercial use and if I am credited as the author. Feel free to link to this site but not in your own frameset please.

    21 October, 2001

    Golden ace of Armand

    Neither Krug nor Dom won themselves a new customer this summer in the wake of the American hiphop artist Jay-Z's very mentioned boycott of the topchampagne of Louis Roederer, Cristal.

    Instead a rather unknown champagnemaker - Armand de Brignac - based in the village Chigny-les-Roses in the Montagne de Reims, can probably look forward to increasing sales the next years, after the singer has chosen "The Ace" as his preferred fizz. In the USA anyway, which is the first place outside France where the familyfirm has now begun to market their champagne.

    Kitsch or class?
    The bottle itself - gilt and with a metal label in the shape of the Ace of Spades - tries to find a balance between kitsch and vulgarity. I am not convinced that they manage, but as you know, the customer is always right. Don't they know it at Louis Roederer's. Check out for yourself in Jay-Z's latest video here.

    The American manager of Armand de Brignac, Brett Berish, says to the winemagazine Decanter, that he is honoured with the interest. It has probably provided him a job as well.

    Cristal or "The Ace"
    There has been an incredible silence around the sales - or no sales maybe - of Cristal since a few comments from the Roederer-boss provoked the boycott right before the silly season began in June.

    But Cristal will probably manage just fine even without being bought by Jay-Z. Just like it survived the fall of the Russian tsars, eventually anyway.

    I am not quite convinced that the taste of "The Ace" is too important when then band plays... but if someone happens to be interested in that part of the party too, they can read more about the golden bubbles in the American part of cyberspace.

    På dansk

    Copyright: The copyright for text and photos at bobler.blogspot.com belongs to Solveig Tange. You may use my articles, photos or parts of them for non-commercial use and if I am credited as the author. Feel free to link to this site but not in your own frameset please.

    20 October, 2001

    Vines for wine only for professionals


    Vine in autumn colours outside one of the champagnehouses of Verzy.

    Our local paper likes the idea of closeness to the readers. A way to demonstrate this is to answer their various questions on everything you can imagine on page 2 and publish the answer the next day.

    Some days ago I stumbled into an interesting question in our region: Can you skip the lawn and plant Pinot Noir or Chardonnay all over your garden? The subsoil in Champagne after all is perfect to grow and store wine. Almost too good an opportunity to miss. So of course you cannot.

    Vines that produce grapes for wine are subdued rules and laws just like so many other subthemes regarding growing and producing wines. If you are not a winegrower, you must stick to decorative vines such as the amandin and the perdin or to vines that produce tables grapes such as the chasselas doré and the muscat says Jean-Mary Tarlant, who is chairman of the syndicate of winegrowers in Champagne, to the newspaper l'Union.

    Just for decoration
    In the old days - and I do not know excactly when that happened to be - farmers were allowed to plant an area of 2500 square meters with vines and use the grapes for wine for their own consumption. Those were the days.

    Now you can grow one single plant in espalier but only for decoration. I presume it is allowed to eat the grapes though, Even grapes for champagne are quite small, they taste fine. As long as you like their touch of acidity.

    We have one small Pinot Noir in our garden. I hope it is included i the rule. Otherwise we must build an espalier fast fast fast, so we do not put the license in any danger.





    But now I would like to know if the vines we last May found for sale outside the Chapel Down vinery in Southern England just happen to be another example of the usual British stretching and bending the EU-rules to the limit. Maybe the customers are only allowed one plant.

    Or the English winegrowers may just be happily not knowing the degree of details, when it comes to EU-regulations of vines. Because apparently the legislation on these matters is dealt with at Bruxelles-level.

    På dansk

    Copyright: The copyright for text and photos at bobler.blogspot.com belongs to Solveig Tange. You may use my articles, photos or parts of them for non-commercial use and if I am credited as the author. Feel free to link to this site but not in your own frameset please.

    09 October, 2001

    Indian Summer in the Montagne de Reims



    All the wonderful sunshine, that we receive at the moment, affects the vines as well as humans. These lovely Pinot Noir-grapes will never see green champagnebottles from the inside. The harvest is over. But maybe a thoughtful soul will pass buy to pick them for a clafoutis instead.



    The different vines are not the same when it comes to pretty autumn colours by the way. Where the Pinot Noir-grapes really wear the prettiest autumncolours from the entire scale of burned colours, the Chardonnay all too soon moves from green, passes yellow to wither.

    På dansk

    Copyright: The copyright for text and photos at bobler.blogspot.com belongs to Solveig Tange. You may use my articles, photos or parts of them for non-commercial use and if I am credited as the author. Feel free to link to this site but not in your own frameset please.

    08 October, 2001

    Marnotherapeutical


    Balloons are part of the marnotherapy. Here passing over newly burst Pinot Noir-vines in the Montagne de Reims.

    - And they even let people pay 50 euros.

    The astonishment is quite genuine, as guests, grapepickers and the family discuss during one of the meals of the past grapeharvest.

    The subject is a vigneron in one of the villages of the Côte des Blancs, who has understood how to make a business of winetourism as well. Several days of the grapeharvest this year he welcomed 200 paying guests to a traditional lunch.

    On top of the lunch the guests get a bit of an introduction to the work in the fields, a visit to the local museum of champagne and some hours where they pick grapes. This is what you get for 50 euros. Almost.

    Local astonishment
    This is the part where the genuine surprise enters the scene. The local champenois who have to work in the vineyards to make their living just do not understand, what makes anyone who does not have to even pay to participate.

    To pick grapes is hard, dirty, boring (for some). To empty baskets or buckets and lift boxes filled with 50 kilos of grapes is even harder, even more dirty.

    But if you are not local - like me - the vines, the grapes, the old-fashioned way of the harvest has a special aura. You are outside all day, you can sniff the smell of wet soils, feel a light wind play on your cheek and feel the beneficial sensation of sunbeams that warm your skin.

    Okay, some people will end the grapeharvest with a back burned as red as a lobster. In France there are still a lot of macho men that do not use suntan lotion. Their problem.

    So I understand quite well that some hours of harvesting are tempting. It takes you one step closer to the full bottles than what you achieve from a visit at the reception of the vigneron, and it is the only task in the vineyards that you can carry out without knowing anything. But few locals have understood this fascination.

    Lifestyle in the Marne
    This - and because champagne is good business - is probably why only few vignerons in Champagne so far work with winetourism. But in other big wineareas in France it seems to be a domain that is in growth. Along with the general crisis, I suppose. Certainly it is mentioned more and more in professional media and newsletters.

    In Champagne few or none have an economical pressure these days where sales seem to know only one direction: Up. Which is undoubtly why the phenomenon is not very developped here yet. Certainly it is far away from the potential it must have.

    The question is how much there will remain to show on the long term, since the development here is moving away from a classical harvest where you lodge people. The authorities demand more and more facilities for the staff - that follows a modern world, of course - but it also makes many decide to hire teams instead that lodge themselves in their own campingcars. Thus you save installing for instance yet another shower. But you also loose the traditions of the grapeharvest one more place.

    Folklore for the tourists
    Left will be various harvest parties the old style, that areas such as the Saint-Thierry massif arranges, but only after the real grapeharvest is over. Nobody has time to deal with tourists before. So there will be a bit of hullabaloo for the visitors but not the real thing.

    In the departement of Marne the initiative marnothérapie covers champagne and vines and much more. For instance the hotel-castle in Etoges, wellness
    and a flight over the Montagne de Reims in balloons.

    If your preference is more the grapeharvest itself such as in the village in the Côte des Blancs, a bottle of champagne from the year is included in your 50 euros. You may even get an older bottle if you cannot wait two years since any champagne will not be ready until two years after the grapeharvest.

    På dansk

    Copyright: The copyright for text and photos at bobler.blogspot.com belongs to Solveig Tange. You may use my articles, photos or parts of them for non-commercial use and if I am credited as the author. Feel free to link to this site but not in your own frameset please.

    05 October, 2001

    Laws of champagne must be followed

    Quotas, pruningsystems, different dates of harvesting... the line of laws and rules, that the winegrowers of Champagne must follow to be allowed to write champagne on their etiquettes sometimes seems infinite. And since it is hardly possible for any authority to controle it all, you at times may get the heretic idea that it may all be just for the sake of good looks and high prices. Well, it is not, and we have recently seen good, solid proof.

    This concerns an acquaintance that makes his leaving from performing different taskes in vineyards of other people in the Côte des Blancs. He has put himself into trouble after letting different teams pick grapes in the region of Vertus. But at wrong starting times.

    Four different starting dates
    In Vertus grapeharvest happens to be a rather complicated affair, because the plots are divided into four different zones. This is due to big differences between the plots. Some are placed on slopes around Vertus, others on completely flat land. An orientation that is important for the maturity of the grapes. In Vertus this means four different start dates for the grapeharvest.

    From a technical point of view this is of course the best thing to do. The grapes are simply harvested at a better time. But it is also very complicated for an employer who have to plan how he can hire a group of people and get everything harvested in a continuous period of time.

    Our acquaintance this year made a crucial mistake. He mixed up the starting dates for these different zones, and thus harvested some grapes at wrong times.

    Bureaucrats in farmer's country
    A detail so far out in the land of farmers, that the bureaucrats in the INAO - that is the organisation under the Ministry of Agriculture that guards the AOC's - of course would never have hear about it. If not helpful neighbours took care of whispering the news about the mistaken harvest dates into the ears of the right people. Which lead to a bustle of bureaucrats from Paris in the affected rows of vines.

    So now we know: It does matter whether you stick to the rules or not. You always run the risk, that somebody would feel like telling somebody else about those who may not do as they are supposed to.

    We expect to take over a very mistreated plot this autumn. A plot that will need a lot of manual work, before it can meet the technical requirements. But I suppose we will not be charged with anything as long as we work on the state if it and change it for the better.

    The grapes harvested at wrong times were rejected, by the way. So it does matter after all.

    På dansk

    Copyright: The copyright for text and photos at bobler.blogspot.com belongs to Solveig Tange. You may use my articles, photos or parts of them for non-commercial use and if I am credited as the author. Feel free to link to this site but not in your own frameset please.

    01 October, 2001

    News October 2006

    06.10.2006: From the beginning of November a rosé champagne from the house of Ayala has been for sale. It is called "Rosé Nature", and the "Nature" covers, that it contains absolutely no sugar after degorgement. This latest member of an increasingly popular, pink family mainly contains grapes from the harvest in 2002. It is mixed of 53 percent of Chardonnay from Cuis-Vertus, Pinot Noir from Mareuil-sur-Aÿ, Verzy and Rilly-la-Montagne and eight percent redwine from Mareuil-sur-Aÿ, says La Journée Vinicole. The house of Ayala is owned by another famous inhabitant of Aÿ, Bollinger.

    17.10.2006:
    Bollinger is not pleased. Bottles of Bolly has been put on sale in the sales of wine, that takes place in some French supermarket chains every autumn for a price of 27 euro. Similar bottles normally sell for more than double. The marketing director of Bollinger, Steven Leroux, says to Decanter.com, that the company wants further details about the sale, and that Bollinger considers a court case. According to the top boss, Ghislain de Montgolfier, an offer of this kind is bad for the image of Bollinger.

    16.10.2006: Pommery is ready with another member of the young POP-family. A golden 20 centiliter POP in the blue and the pink series is ready for the Christmas-shopping, says Just-drinks.com.

    19.10.2006: Remy Cointreau increased their turnover with 1,3 percent in the first six months of 2006, the group says to the British newsagency, Reuters. Demand of the champagne Piper-Heidsieck and of cognac has contributed to the growth.

    20.10.2006: The Vranken-Pommery-Monopole group has grown 11,6 percent in the first six months of 2006. The group comprises Vins des Sables and Vins-de-Provence too, but it is mainly the activities in Champagne, that has put the growth of the year as high as 19,9 percent in Europe, 28,8 percent in the Americas and 64,5 percent in Asia, says La Journée Vinicole. The group follows the same trend as the collegues in Reims and Épernay, and has in 2006 introduced a new rosé. It is a millésime from 1999 in the upper end of the Pommery-assortment, the cuvée Louise.

    24.10.2006: The purchase of Lanson International in March 2006 has halved the profit of Boizel Chanoine Champagne in the first half of the year, says Just-drinks.com.

    På dansk

    Copyright: The copyright for text and photos at bobler.blogspot.com belongs to Solveig Tange. You may use my articles, photos or parts of them for non-commercial use and if I am credited as the author. Feel free to link to this site but not in your own frameset please.

    29 September, 2001

    We expect "un beau millésime"


    Chardonnay-grape few days before the harvest.

    The picking of the grapes 2006 ended under influences of gentlelweather with maritime tendencies. This is how the CIVC (Comité Interprofessionnelle du vin de Champagne) describe the general impression of the most important weeks in Champagne this year: The weeks of the grapeharvest.

    The first news about the generel quality of grapes are good. There has been only little disease this year. Especially the green Chardonnay-grapes are promising not to say that they seem to have a great future in front of them.

    The harvest however will only be finished completely by mid-October. And the CIVC also awaits tasting the first clear wines before they want to say more about the potential quality of the year 2006.

    However,"Un beau millésime en perspective",is the last sentence in an announcement send out by the organisation, so it seems rather good so far. We eye the perspective of another great vintage in the horizon.

    På dansk

    Copyright: The copyright for text and photos at bobler.blogspot.com belongs to Solveig Tange. You may use my articles, photos or parts of them for non-commercial use and if I am credited as the author. Feel free to link to this site but not in your own frameset please.