24 December, 2015

X-mas - Noël - Jul


A merry christmas to everybody who celebrates it, and happy holidays for everybody else.

Snow is rare this very warm year. Vineyards of 17 degrees Celsius as late as December 17th. Further north, in Denmark, temperatures are more like early spring than heart of winter.

We will celebrate anyway, with angels of light seen in the low skies over the christmas market of Reims, and a few bubbly bottles.

This year we'll go for this type.

 
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17 December, 2015

17th of December thus 17 degrees Celsius


17th of December. Another day in the vineyards, and a warm one of them.

Today the degrees of Celsius in Loisy-en-Brie happened to match the date around lunchtime, and that is certainly not an everyday thing. Yet at least. And actually it is not very comfortable.

Temperatures like this make you wonder how the vines pass the wintertime. A bit of cold - definition: below zero - is good for plants, maybe persons as well. As a winegrower you can also fear an early start of the vines which means that yourself, you must speed up your pruning. Since our days have the same amount of daylight, it is not really possible to speed up very much.

So, let this be a loner please.

No logical follow up the 18th and the days to come, please.

16 December, 2015

Multipurpose vendangeoir Noël style




Every year we do a x-mas party the Danish way for our children and adult friends in Champagne.

The party takes place in the afternoon, now and then well into the evening as well, with an atelier of decorations, x-mas cookies and beignets and vin chaud, gloegg in Danish, which is of course prepared with our local redwine, and it does a good job in this set-up as well. Your vin chaud can never be better than the wine was from the start, so it actually makes a difference with a wine of several years even a bit on the light side like our Coteaux Champenois.

But party or not, you can still glue som labels in the morning as you wait for the arrival of your guests .

And so we did.

Some of these Selection of 2006 even left the building a few hours later.

To help securing a merry x-mas somewhere.

12 December, 2015

A hand or two before x-mas


Champagnes being prepared for last deliveries before the coming-up holiday celebrations.

02 December, 2015

1st plot tasting and it asks for more


The tasting sessions are on.

The wines from september are still young. This means not very stable, you must treat them a bit like kids. Give them the best you can but do not expect to see them deliver fully yet. A wine that you may find great one day, can be quite different the following week. Just do not judge it to hard, after all these wines are not adult yet, they may be as capricious as teenagers and it is okay.

Patience often pays though. Also today.

The wines are so much better than last week. It was, in fact, a bit disappointing.

Plot wines upa
This week amongst others a line of parcellaires are up. Plot wines, thus important to each of the tasters, as most do at least one or two plot wines.

We care for ours. The third in a line of three, not yet for sale but oh, are we looking forward for that moment?

So far we name it Vieilles vignes because we can... in fact all our vines are old, we have just not bottled one so far. That will change,

In this 100% Chardonnay we find both the acidity necessary for a wine to keep and develop but also fruits and a certain souplesse or softness.

And today it received both charmeur and prometteur from the hardest Vertus-gang who basically like only Chardonnay from Vertus, and the grandfather of all maintained the comments even as it was revealed to be a simple autres crus from yours truly.

29 November, 2015

COP21 åbner i varmest målte år


I dag begynder COP21 i Paris.

Billedet er fra november. Det er taget på en dag så varm, at det kaldte på et billede med dato og temperatur direkte fra instrumentbrædtet. Bare for at huske utroligheden.

Konference i Paris
Det er i den anledning af delegationer fra hele verden - 40.000 personer - fra i dag samles i Paris for at nå en eller anden enighed om hvad man skal gøre. Med højdepunkt når næsten 150 regeringschefer mødes senere på konferencen og forhåbentlig med et brugbart resultat først og fremmest for de mennesker på jorden, der står forrest i skudlinjen.

Læs mere om opvarmningen her.

For os andre betyder det bl.a. artikler i franske medier om, hvordan man bedst cirkulerer i den franske hovedstad de næste to uger. Har man prøvet at køre ind i Paris på en normal dag, ved man godt, at det kan betale sig at overveje sin ankomst. En stor international konference har en meget indgribende betydning for, hvordan man kan komme rundt i og ind i byen ikke mindst set i lyset af terrorhandlingerne for bare to uger siden.

Vi leverer normalt champagne i december, i år bliver det nok først, efter at COP21 er slut midt i december.

Varmt år
Opvarmningen mærker vi i år ikke mindst på grund af de ekstraordinært varme temperaturer i juli måneders hedebølge, hvor vi havde omkring 35 grader i det meste af en måned. Men også dette efterår, hvor vi foreløbig stort set ikke har haft nattefrost, og dagene har budt på ret varmt vejr. Et varmere år er aldrig målt. Og i 2014 var det dette år, der tog rekorden.

Der tales allerede om, at 2016 kan blive endnu varmere.

Varmen har en betydning for alt levende på jorden. Her i Champagne har vi med 1,2 grader varmere vejr i snit de sidste 30 år foreløbig fået bedre vine ud af opvarmningen. Hvilken betydning det på sigt vil få for vintyper, vines udvikling, de praksisser vi anvender f.eks. i forbindelse med beskæring, må tiden vise.

I Champagne har professionen - blandt andre Comité Champagnes teknikere - forsket i sagen i årevis. Det vil bl.a. sige, at de driver forsøgsvinmarker over længere årrækker for at udlede viden, og det kan meget vel blive på basis heraf, at eventuelt nye dyrkningsteknikker vil blive besluttet.

26 November, 2015

One icy morning in Loisy-en-Brie


One icy morning... In Loisy-en-Brie.

It almost goes like an Irish traditional, does it not?

However, it is a true story from the daily lives of a winegrower in Loisy-en-Brie, Champagne, and surely many others.

The icy coating does not prevent your daily task of pruning though. It just makes your finger turn blue :-)

Only temperatures below minus 2 may change your daily program as the vines then may be damaged by the frost. We don't discuss fingers here.

The vines now lay dormant for the rest of the winter that may still come.

So far tuesday this week is the only day we have seen frost.

And 2015 as far as I have learned is still candidate of the warmest year ever measured. COP21 coming up this sunday in Paris.

Before your fingers become sympathecially blue, you must know, that the icy morninghours were followed by the first tasting of the wines of 2015.

24 November, 2015

To prune or not to prune


Welcome to our upper vineyard of Chardonnays in Loisy-en-Brie

At pruning time.

Sunday and monday with temperatures that suits the season better than what we had lately. Cool and closer to zero degrees Celsius than 10 or even 15.

Tuesday even with a possibility of a little snow. Want to see the flakes before I believe that one though.


But a bit of temperatures below should suit the vines well.

So far the wood has not been very great. Maybe due to the unusually warm temperatures this autumn.

This is the wood where next years grapes are due, so the quality is quite important.

These ones are ready.

Next spring we'll know more.


Until then there is another 24.000 vines to deal with.

Approximately.

We actually don't count them :-)

17 November, 2015

Efter Paris

Hvordan er det lige, man skriver en blogpost igen efter massakren i Paris forleden?

Næsten alt forekommer så meningsløst og latterligt i sammenligning med terrorens monumentalitet.

Men det er det jo ikke. Vi hjælper ikke verden i gang igen ved at stoppe den. Gøre ingenting.

Så jeg blev glad for denne lille hilsen søndag.


"Hej Solveig.

Var glad for at finde Tange-Gerard i Torvehallerne i dag.

Jeg har faktisk ikke været ved baren før.

Vi var inde for at lægge blomster ved den franske ambassade."


Overalt i Frankrig var der et minuts stilhed mandag.

Også i Soulières.

Borgmesteren for disse 143 sjæle havde nået at sende en kommunal skrivelse ud om at holde minuttet ved kirken foran det sted, hvor et flag kan sættes op.

Der kom 20 mennesker.

De andre var på arbejde andre steder eller i skole.

Egentlig må man vel ikke forsamle mennesker, selvom det vist primært gælder pariserregionen, Île de France. Her er undtagelsestilstand, hvilket er et meget mærkeligt ord at skrive. Også selvom det primært skyldes andre grunde end folks forsamlingsfrihed. Det giver politiet større beføjelser for at udføre deres arbejde, end man normalt bryder sig om i en retsstat. Men alt er foreløbig netop ikke normalt efter den 13. november.


Så hvordan er det lige, man kommer i gang igen?

Vi har talt om det med vores børn og hinanden og bliver ved med det. Vi har tændt stearinlys. På et tidspunkt kommer der nok en ny mulighed for at markere sin ekstreme afstandtagen i selskab med andre ligesom efter den 7. januar.

Og så fortsætter vi i øvrigt med at drikke champagne. Ligesom vores kunde i Torvehallerne.

05 November, 2015

Warm vineyards

Loisy-en-Brie today.

Getting ready for the real pruning. Not just cleaning the feet of the vines.

Automnal heatwave a bit in the way:

23 degrees Celsius at lunchtime today.

I guess the automn leaves are not excactly ready to drift (by my window).

The year of 2015 was sofar already unbelievably warm. Apparently we have not seen the end yet.

Pretty setting a few weeks before the UN climate conference in Paris, the COP 21, that takes place in a few weeks.

20 October, 2015

Beskæringsservice



For nogle uger siden sendte jeg disse billeder til en af vores danske kunder.

Han havde et par spørgsmål om beskæring.

Nu giver jeg mig ikke ud for at være en meget stor ekspert, men de fire slagser, vi bruger i Champagne, mener jeg at mestre til husbehov. Og spørgsmålet gik lige præcis på Cordon de Royat-metoden, som vi bruger blandt andet her.

Selvom før og efter på billederne hverken er samme plante eller saks, fremgår idéen vist nogenlunde. Det var i hvert fald tydeligt for vores kunde:

"Tak for billederne med beskæring. Det er virkelig en hjælp, for en amatør som mig. Nu tror jeg næsten, jeg kan få taget godt hul på næste sæson :-)."

Sjovt er det, at så mange af jer derude og deroppe sysler med vinstokke i baghaven. Det er slet ikke et usædvanligt emne.

Af og til tror folk, at vindyrkning i Danmark må forekomme i bedste fald mærkeligt for franskmænd.

Sådan ser vi ikke på det. Tværtimod giver det os blot endnu et emne at grave i, når vi ses.

Så... bare fortsæt det gode arbejde... vi kommer på et tidspunkt og tjekker courson'erne.





19 October, 2015

Wooden plastic


Usually we do like this as we prune our vines.

That is we remove the branches and burn them straigth away to prevent possible disease from spreading.

There are other ways. We were introduced to one of them in the VITeff exhibition for wineprofesionnals in Epernay last week.



The box looks like plastic, doesn't it? It feels like it as well.

It's not. Well not completely anyway.

Guess what, this box is made of 30% cut off wine branches combined with 70% recycled plastic.

The branches end up like these little pills, that are used for the boxes,



The only problem is the colour.

Not that easy to spot in a vineyard where plastic boxes currently in use look like this.


But when you have a product that is is based on sustainability, you don't really feel like adding colour that would reduce it.

So I guess we can learn to live with it.

Especially since the price is supposed to be similar to traditional plasticboxes.

We have boxes to replace before next grapeharvest, and will look forward to see this product on the market.

15 October, 2015

Autumn is in Champagne

Prepruning the autumn leaves


At the moment Alain preprunes.

Which means he shortens the branches with the 10-20 centimeters above the upper wire.

Not very interesting right now but when the real pruning begins, it does help.

Walking through all the lanes in all the vineyards these days is a pretty sight.

This is what the Pinots look like in Loisy-en-Brie.






14 October, 2015

Autum amazed


It's autumn holidays in Denmark.

Some are out for the vines and their wines.

And we receive guests as well.

Expect a colourful walk.

This autumn is amazing.

11 October, 2015

Vinhøst 2015:Tørt, sødt og godt


Årets vinhøst i Champagne. Vores druer er små og så modne, at deres syregrønne skind er på vej over i det gyldne, fordi de virkelig har set solen denne sommer. Mærket varmen, som også har presset planterne. Klaserne er små og få men druerne komplekse, med en syre, der stadig holder sukkeret i skak: Smagen af Soulières. Om nogle år har vi den til jer på flaske.

Det skal nok blive interessant. 2015 har budt os et vejr, der aldrig er målt magen til i Champagne. Derfor er det heller ingen let sag at gætte på, hvilken vin vi vil få ud af året.

Chardonnay-planterne, der blomstrede først, klarede sommerens tour de force bedst. På Pinot Meunier-planterne derimod, der blomstrede under sommerens hedebølge, blev druerne kun få, og de forblev små. De tålte dårligt den alt for meget varme på et kritisk tidspunkt.

Vand var der heller ikke meget af. Fra sidst i juni og til kort før vinhøsten først i september regnede det nærmest ikke. Det betød, at melduggen, som vi ellers holder øje med, aldrig rigtig kom i spil og så vidt så godt. For juli måneds svimlende varme dage gav vinstokkene skarp konkurrence med græsset om det vand, begge havde brug for at finde i jorden.

Når klaserne er små, tager det længere tid at plukke kilo nok til at fylde en presse. I Champagne skal druerne presses inden 24 timer, og det giver et vist logistisk pres på mindre foretagender som vores, hvis pressen er stor, som den vi bruger. Her gør et dygtigt team en stor forskel, og vi er godt vant. Hos os trækker folk i en retning, vi kan mærke. Også i 2015.


Derfor kunne vi igen i et år med dramatisk færre druer fylde kasser nok til at sætte begyndelsen på endnu en parcel-vin af vores helt egne i verden. Vi regner med at genfinde den lange, tørre sommer i smagen af årgang 2015 fra Soulières. Hvad det mere præcist betyder, er ingen let sag at gætte på. Det er aldrig let at forudsige karakteren af en vin, der først er klar om en del år. Men endnu mindre når året er usædvanligt.

Foreløbig er vi glade for druernes komplekse sødme og for den syre, vi altid frygter for under hedebølger, og som er så nødvendig for vinens indre balance og potentiale. Champagne er ingen ung vin, og uden syre går den ikke.

Vi glæder os til at smage denne varme årgang, måske kommer den til at hedde 2015, måske holder vi os til Vieilles vignes som først tænkt. Vores vinstokke har alderen: De ældste er fra begyndelsen af 1960’erne og de yngste fra1980’erne, men moden alder er kun en fordel, når man er en vinstok. Vores gæster undrer sig gang på gang, når vi fortæller, at vi ikke hidtil har hældt dette aldrende guld på flaske.

Kære venner, det har vi nu, og vi glæder os til at smage boblerne med jer. Når de kommer op fra kælderen. For der går, som I ved, nogle år. Foreløbig er den første alkoholiske gæring slut, men de nye vine er som altid ustabile og ændrer sig fra uge til uge.

Indtil videre fortsætter vi med de champagner, som I allerede kender. Skriv gerne for flere oplysninger på champagne-tange-gerard @ orange.fr.

Høsthilsener
Alain Gérard og Solveig Tange
Soulières, primo oktober 2015.

08 October, 2015

Autumn colours, autumn holidays


Thursday we had guests all the way from Sweden.

It rained so badly that we had to stay inside.

Sorry about that. What can one do? We invited them back another time.

Anyway, this is what the vineyards look like these days. All dressed up in autumn colours, and it will only be better the next weeks.

Autumn holidays are coming up as well. We are around some of the time, come and have a look for yourselves. Should you be into champagne and Champagne.


30 September, 2015

Noirs & Blancs til "Best of the year"

 
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"Den vandt en smagning for noget tid siden i vores lille vinklub, så den skal med i en "best-of the year aften".

Så hvor får man fat i mere Noirs & Blancs?

Svaret er Soulières, men hvis du ikke er på vej til Champagne, foreslår vi Thingstedhus ved Horsens, Butlervin på Østerbro og i Sorø, le Petit i Torvehallerne ved Nørreport eller Champagneselskabet.

God fornøjelse.

11 September, 2015

Grapeharvest 2015


Grapes grapes grapes.

We have begun the vendanges. This is what it looks like.

More pictures to enjoy at our Facebook-page.

10 September, 2015

Ready steady cut


As this photo pops up in your screens, we have just started the work.

Picking grapes for the rest of the day. Today, tomorrow and probably a full week.

The grapes look very fine. Excited as always.

This is what it looked like in 2014.

Stay tuned for more to come.

09 September, 2015

The grapes of 2015


Countdown.

Everything is ready, we think. Not least the grapes.

Last weeks generel measures showed Chardonnays 87%, Pinot Noir 93% and Pinot Meunier 97% mature.

We have had an extraordinarily warm summer in Champagne which has accumulated quite an amount of sugar whilst the acidity seems to remain at an accetable level. However, we have followed the development with some excitement due to the heatwave. Late august the Comité Champagne compared the level with that of the years 2013 and 2008 based on the data from these years. However, your own sample may still be different than the general pattern It shall be interesting to learn about the final level at the presses.

Some rain these last weeks has made the grapes put on some weight but they remain smaller than last year.

As for the rest we will no much more in the days to come.

08 September, 2015

To help the grapes see the sun


Outdoor preparations before the grapeharvest look like this.

They have looked like this for a couple of weeks now.

The idea is to remove branches - leaves - to uncover the grapes, so they will catch just a bit more sun before they will land in our baskets in just a few days now. (More pics).

You are quite right.

It is okay to cut manually, but when you cut three hecares and an equivalent of about 10 kilometers of rows with vines, you may feel that your arms are a bit long in the end.

Luckily this job is coming to an end now.



07 September, 2015

Flowers and the vineyards


Getting to the end of our preparations we took the time to welcome some guests.
We went to the vineyards. Alain is not working out, he is looking for an American to show.

And then we all went for a sip of champagne.


They were not really champagne-drinkers, they said. They already tried something in a restaurant that they did not like, so what would I suggest?

The same as I just delived a few days before to a lady from Brittany, about to celebrate a big double birthday in the close family. A party, that could turn out quite cheerful.

I am quite convinced, that our visitors might come back for champagne another time. In Soulieres or a shop where our champagne is found.

Flowers from the visit
Guess what, they tipped me and made me promise to go and buy flowers with the money.

After the grapeharvest, I will get something to plant in the garden, and a flower for the little vase, the only one I have with me, where we live at the moment.

Feeling really pleased :-)

04 September, 2015

A taste of grapes


Chardonnays of 2015. Looking good as you can see.

But when are they perfect? Or rather when do they reach the optimum level before they decline?

Sugar and acidity-samples
To decide this a network of winegrowers all over Champagne collect samples, measure the sugar and acidity and report their resultats to the technical department of the Comité Champagne. The technicians of this interface between winegrowers and champagnehouses analyze and combine this into a rather general result and share it with us all during the last weeks before grapeharvest.

We combine these general facts about the yields and the year with our own samples, experience and ideas to reach a conclusion on how to proceed.

A bit of history:2011
Believe me, it is not an easy task. The risk is always that disease, bad weather or other problems arrive as you wait for the perfect level of sugar.

In 2011 Champagne saw an even earlier grapeharvest than this year. That year started out very very early, thus the vines performed the different stages much earlier than usual. However, the summer was not great, which slowed down the maturation. As the weather changed, some decided to postpone the grapeharvest some days. We were amongst these. Others wished they could have postponed too.

To taste the grapes
In Avize, the big coop of l'Union Champagne decided to re-create an old technique of tasting the berries. They imported this from the Bordelais-region, where tasting the grapes is part of the decision proces. I guess, the technique must have existed in Champagne once upon a time, since the idea of tasting the berries to constitute the mix of vines for the blend is one of the techniques ascribed to the legendary Dom Perignon as far as I remember. There is no written heritage from his hand of course, but it could be fun to investigate a bit more.

Anyway, l'Union Champagne has used this technique on top of the others since 2011, and they say to our regional newspaper l'Union, that they are able to retrieve the character of the grape in the final wine.

The parameters are the intensity of the acidity and of the sweetness, the intensity of the taste of "green grass" (herbacité), the lemony maturity, the intensity of the fruit, the maturity of the fruit and the intensity of the astringency.

We both find this quite interesting. And worth trying.

Grapes to be tasted
Next weekend our plan is to pick grapes for another plot champagne. The final wine will be in our hands.

Thus the second step will be to taste the grapes. The first step?

Get the grapes.

They are right here:



Air and sunshine


Soon enough it will be busy here.

Slowly gearing up for the grapeharvest.

Pillows and covers benefit from some september air and sunshine to go with it as do the rooms.