Women buys wine as well

There is a woman behind everything, also most shopping trolleys anyway. And it is the lady in the house who decides an average of 80 percent of its content as well. Also more and more when it comes to wines, even this has traditionally been a more male task. Times are changing, and especially when it comes to bubbles.

"It is a product, that women like, and they are the ones who buy champagne," Cristophe Rappenau from Champagne Martel said to the newspaper l'Union as he during the recent grapeharvest checked red grapes in one of the cooperatives.

Their near future is destined to be red wine, but later this still wine will be used for pink champagne. A product, that many women find attractive. You may count me in.

Bubbles top
In a survey from the French agency Ipsos 80 percent of 1.000 participating women from 18 years and up say, that they regularly have enjoyed wine the last six months. Their favourite is sparkling wines (84 percent), followed by red wine (81 percent).

According to the survey the younger women prefer lighter wines with lots of fruit, and they typically buy it sponataneously in the supermarket. Older women tend to plan more, what wines they buy, they often prefer their wines more structured and buy them at a wine shop or at the winegrower, easy as that is almost all over France.

The French women are ready to pay an average of 7,9 euros for a bottle of wine.

Angelic power from Abelé

 

The smiling angel of the cathedral in Reims.

The champagnehouse of Henri Abelé follows the popular strategy of the time. The introduction of more special, thus more expensive, champagnes to ensure continuing growth.

The small house - about half a million bottles each year - has introduced a cuvée de prestige to celebrate its 250 years birthday. The number of bottles is symbolic: 1757, which is also the year of the foundation of the house. The shape of the bottle is equally inspired by the old days, says Henri Abelé on their website.

The name of the symbolic champagne is Sourire de Reims. The smile belongs to the most famous amongst the crowd of statues, that decorates the facades of cathedral: The angel. I will go as far as to characterize the smile as catching, even it is carved in stone. The tourist agency in Reims does use it so much, that it may tend abuse. Too hard to resist, I guess.

The house of Henri Abelé, owned by the cava-giant Freixenet, has also not been able to resist. And maybe - despite the commercial objective - it is just right, that the world needs more angelic power.

Deep dip in the autumn palette

 

Meunier-plant to the left and Chardonnay-plant to the right. Loisy-en-Brie, September 22nd.

The autumn passes at a gallop. The Meunier-vines blush in the most attractive way, while the Chardonnay-vines stubbornly hang on to the fresh green, that has characterized these leaves all the time since spring.

The varieties simply develop in different ways, which provides Champagne's different areas of vines with their personal autumnal identity.

 

 

Only three weeks ago the vine plots of Loisy-en-Brie were all green. Now autumn colours are up.

The Côte des Blancs, to the South of Épernay, is dominated by Chardonnay-plants, that typically changes straight into yellow from green. In the Montagne de Reims, between Reims and Épernay, the majority is Pinot Noir, a vine that typically covers the complete palette from green, into red and orange until it reaches the final in yellow.

An explosion of colours is about to take off right now on the slopes of the ridge, covered by vineyards on all sides. It is excactly as pretty as it sounds, I hope.

 

The old mill at Verzenay in the Montagne de Reims surrounded by autumn.

Pictures from other years here and here.

Cleaning under Septembersun

 

 

Alain removes all branches, only the bottom of the foot remains.

After the grapeharvest we now enjoy the most wonderful Indian Summer. Twenty something degrees Celsius hang in the rows. On top of that the leaves now show the most beautiful autumn colours you can imagine, butterflies fly around and snails hang on to the leaves. It is simply impossible not to feel content about working under a September sky so clear and fresh and blue.

We just follow the trend: Big coloumns of smoke in the areas of Montagne de Reims and Côte des Blancs show, that many others also have begun their cleaning, even they have just finished the grapeharvest and would normally rest a bit of time. But the weather is too good not to work as it is almost a party to work outside in the vineyards: Leaves and branches are dry right now, and the grapes not yet very rotten.

Removal of disease
The work is to cut off all the branches of diseased vines and make a big heap of it all somewhere away from the vines. Quite a few the diseased plants have already lost most or even all their leaves. They are easy to recognize on their rather fragile look, so different. The vines, that are well, right now look so swell with their burnt colours, leaves covered in pretty nuances of red and orange. The removed branches will be left to dry, and burned later this autumn.

 

 

Cleaning up makes you walk quite a few kilometers, since we have around 30 routes of 200 meters each in this plot.

Alain cuts off the branches, I carry them either up or down. The foot and the roots are left as they are for the time being. We would need a tractor to remove just parts of the roots. But to get rid of the diseased branches is already good. Like this we at least avoid to spread the disease esca further, when by mistake the touching of an ill plant is followed by that of a healthy one.

During one afternoon we manage to clean half a hectare. The plan is to deal with the other half in one week. We expect it to be much worse, and hope for the help of Alains's nephew.

Good grapes for the Coteaux

 

Alain's cousin Gérard sorts grapes from the latest harvest, destined for red wine. Photo: Hanne Høier, DR.

Classical pictures from a grape harvest is stamping the grapes and the table, where men and women sort the grapes. Off goes the rots, the greens and in Champagne also the destroyed grapes. Since champagne is a colourless wine, and the pigments are in the skin of the grapes, you get the clearest champagne, if you remove grapes with broken skin before the pressing.

Today the local production of red wine has gained more significance. The coteaux champenois, as the AOC is called, is necessary to make the popular, pink champagne, and this has made our cooperative invest in more professional equipment for this purpose.

Bad grapes removed
In our coop some of the Pinot and Meunier-grapes are used for champagne and the rest for red wine. Those last mentioned ones are poured unto a speciel table with band, where they are sorted manually. Rotten and unripe grapes are thrown into a box below the table. The rest roll into a kind of screw that seperates berries from stalks and leaves.

 

 

 

 

The band is next to the steel vats, where the grapes macerate some hours. Stalks and leaves end in the red box. Photo: Hanne Høier, DR.

The skin of the grapes, the flesh and the juice are transferred into steel vats, where they macerate several hours. During this period the skin and the pips give away whatever good qualities they possess, for instance colour, to the otherwise colourless juice. Rather important when your objective is to make red wine with a good colour. The special and rather rare, pink champagne of the saignée type receives its colour in the same way.

Later the must, now coloured from the pips and skin, is transferred to other steel vats, where the fermentation to wine takes place. The skin, pips and flesh is pressed, and the result is partly mixed with the fermentating must, partly sold for completely different purposes. Later the young wine goes through filtrations where it is cleaned. The malolactic fermentation, where one kind of acid in the juice is transformed to another, may also be performed. The oenologue of the cooperative can spend all autumn with her wines, before she decides, what she wants to do with them: Some will be sold, some will be kept as red wine, some will be used for the rosé d'assemblage champagne of the cooperative.

New equipment for red wine
It pays off to be gentle with your wine in Champagne. Several of the big champagne houses search high and low for good red wine. We know this, because the extra half hectare of red grapes, that we have worked since last autumn, has been popular amongst those buyers, who knew that these grapes were not yet sold to anybody.

Good - and not the least - available red wine is scarce. Red grapes grow for instance here in Montagne de Reims, but the local winegrowers also have longer tradition of own brands of champagne than in some of the villages of the Côte des Blancs.

Obviously they also have a long tradition and experience of work with the quality of their red grapes. In a book with old post cards we recently noticed how the women 100 years ago were placed in the edge of the vineyards to sort the grapes manually: Triage, it says with capitals on the card.

Triage in the coop
And that is excactly what Gérard and co are doing in the top picture. But this table, I remember being introduced as real unusual and exotic equipment in the Côte des Blancs around 2003-4. In the realm of white grapes, the reds are more unusual and they have thus been shown less interest than the whites.

Now however, pink champagnes sells like des petits pains, and is in fact the champagne that develops faster than anything else these days. A product that sells, customers that pay is universal language, so of course the coop tries to fit into this trend and demand. One way is the investment in the right equipment for red wine. Which involves sorting the grapes.

Who knows, maybe one day we will have to stamp the grapes like they do in the big red wine areas too?

Warm weather in media

The warming got it's popular breakthrough this year. Here and there anyway.

An article from the Washington Post some weeks ago covers, how the warming leaves its marks in Northern France. This year the grapeharvest was the earliest ever. A winegrower from Alsace explains, how he finds it necessary to experiment growing other grape varieties, more fit for warm weather than for instance Pinot Noir and Gewurztraminer.

I don't have the general view of 11 generations of winegrowers, but occasionally I manage to come up with questions, that provides me interesting answers.

Shortly after my arrival here in 2003 I had hardly had time to be homesick before messengers, wellknown to me, arrived. Flights of starlings, thousands, tens of thousands, dived and circled above the vineyards opposite my mother-in-laws farm in the Côte des Blancs, Champagne. And they were hungry after the long flight, all the way from Scandinavia, 1000 kilometers further north.

She explained me, how in the old days she and her parents had to cover the grapes with big nets to protect them against the hunger of the migrating birds. Since the grapeharvest advanced so many weeks, that the necessary grapes were already harvested at the arrival of the migration. Thus the nets became superfluous, and they haven't left the now uninhabited childhome of my mother-in-law since. (More here.)

I didn't allow myself to think global warming at that time. I just always remembered, that the weather has become warmer, while lots of people still remember, how it was once different. The most incredible thing: No one seems to have talked about it. Anyway, I've never heard of such discussions!

This seems to have changed during 2007.

Grapeharvest 2007

 

All photos: Hanne Høier, DR

From all of us to all of you: Team of the year, 12 pickers, three carriers, one driver and the rest. From August 29th until September 5th we picked, carried and delivered around 43 tons of grapes of the varieties Chardonnay, Meunier and Pinot Noir.

 

Blue Meunier-grapes from one of our plants in Loisy-en-Brie in the Côte des Blancs, Champagne. The green grapes are not ripe yet.

All in all the team harvested three hectares of vines, one third belongs to Alain and myself. We have two plots, both with Meunier-grapes. As expected the plants on the upper plot gave very few grapes. The plants have been badly taken care of for years, and we are now in the process of re-establishing it. This year part of the price to pay is the amount of grapes.

The other plot has almost enough grapes to reach the amount, we are entitled to sell (the quota). This year, this is very good for a plot with red grapes, says a friend, whose job is to buy grapes for one of the big champagnehouses.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

12-16 pickers - more during the weekend - picks the grapes, three-four empties baskets in boxes of 50 kilos and finally lift the boxes into the car. It contains two pallets, and is preferably off to the cooperative three-four times each day.

We have plots in three different places, and pick them according to the maturity of the grapes and a minimum of movement between plots. Since a lot of time is wasted each time you move 15 persons from one place to another. Preferably we change only after lunch. Alain regularly takes samples of grapes and get their amount of sugar and acidity measued in the lab of the coop.

The weather is on our side. Few days before we begin the harvest, the endless grey and the rain is replaced by fine and regular sunshine. Only one day is spent in the heavy rain gear. The mornings are warmer than usual. After all, we are three weeks ahead of the normal schedule, around September 20th. Still, the weather looks the same as any other vendange three weeks later. Morningfog. Changing of the colours of the leaves. Cool evenings. Thus it seems, that 2007 continues its anomalies. The year began with unusually warmth, spring came extremely early, and now autumn seems to be here several weeks before expected. Even the migrating birds have been around for at least a couple of weeks.

 

Afternoone break in the vineyard.

To pick grapes is hard. You work in a very low heigth since the plants are grown only one meter and twenty tall. On top of that you're expected to pick rather fast. Therefor only few breaks during the year can beat the ones during the grapeharvest. In the middle of the morning, again in the middle of the afternoon (we go back for lunch): Coffee tastes so good here, accompagnied by baguette with sausage and cheese and industrial cakes like madeleines and quatre quarts.

 

Each year has it's specialities: This year Claude decided to bring a few baskets of escargots, all the way back to Normandy. This year the call escargot ecchoed cheerfully through the lines whenever somebody found one. He had any chance to gather enough for a meal for all of the family.

 

 

 

Each member delivers his or her grapes at the cooperative, where they are weighted and afterwards collected for a marc, the equivalent of the 8.000 kilos of each press. Some of the boxes are still emptied manually.

 

 

 

 

Ecah pressing takes four hours. The result is must of different qualities. Only the best - la cuvée - is used for champagne. The must flows into a big vat below the presses. From here it is transferred to a special vat, where it is filtered to clean it, and afterwards transferred to big temperature-controlled steel vats, where the first fermentation of the must into wine takes place. This wine will later be used to create the final product, the champagne.

 

CIVC - the organisation, that amongst others controls the course of the grapeharvest in Champagne - has published its general evaluation of the vendange of this year.

The grapes are healthy and with a mostly suitable balance between sugar (alcohol) and acidity, some places even good enough for vintage champagnes, they say. The organisation expects most growers to reach the 12.400 kilo of grapes per hectare, that is the base quota of 2007 (rendement de base).

CIVC adds that they are rather happy after a 2007, "far from normal" with early development of the plants, bad weather during the flowering and rain and cold weather in August, which made it rather complicated to name the good starting date. Some growers postponed their start a few days to let the grapes benefit from the sunshine, that after August 24th burned its way through the grey skies. Et voilà, as we say in France.

The last deliveries of grapes at our cooperative - "La Vigneronne" in Vertus, Côte des Blancs - were brought in during September 11th.

 

 

 

No grapeharvest without its parties. This year we did a barbeque in the garden and celebrated Apollines, granddaughter of Alains cousin, four years birthday. After sunset, we moved back in, the evenings are really cool at this time.

So the cycle of the vines are through once again, and autumn seems to have settled with us in Champagne.