Turist i Reims: Besøg Demoiselle og Pommery

 

Turister i Reims vil ofte gerne se en af champagnehulerne.

Og det skal I da også :-) De store huse er Champagnes pendant til Bordeaux' kendte slotte og Bourgognes negocianter.

Kældre og kalkstensbrud
Reims har en hel stribe champagnehuse, heraf råder fem over de antikke crayères, de gallo-romanske kalkstensminer, der var de oprindelige champagnekældre.

En af disse fem er Pommery, der desuden har hjemme i en interessant arkitektur, som nogen muligvis ville betegne arkitektens onde drøm.

Pommerys bygninger er bygget sidst i 1800-tallet i en imiteret Tudor-stil, der vist ellers primært findes i England. Det var netop også som en hyldest til husets overvejende, engelske kunder, at chefen, Louise Pommery, fik sit firma udformet på denne måde.

Overfor det blågrå Tudor-slot ligger den markante Art Nouveau villa, der i dag hedder Demoiselle, og som Pommerys nuværende ejer, Vranken, for nylig har renoveret efter alle kunstens regler.

Kældre, villa og bobler
Et nyt tilbud går ud på at besøge Pommerys kældre, Villa Demoiselle og smage et glas champagne for 25 euro.

Jeg har endnu ikke selv nået turen, men jeg synes, det lyder som en godt tilbud for den, der interesserer sig for bobler.

Fortæl mig endelig om dine oplevelser, hvis du har prøvet.

Læs mere om Pommery. Du kan også tjekke hos Tripadvisor.

Normalerweise vejr i vinen

Når folk taler om vejret - det gør de og vi tit - er det ofte det anderledes vejr, der får en tur. Ofte på pukkelen.

Det regner alt for meget. Det er alt for koldt. Det er alt for varmt. Vælg selv.

Korte referencer
Tit er vejret i går reference. Nogen gange husker vi helt tilbage til sidste uge.

Kun fordi jeg er nogenlunde flink til at notere lidt ned om vejret, er jeg blevet bedre til at huske, hvordan det egentlig var.

Også sidste år og forrige år.

Normalt vejr
Men det rækker ikke til at udtale sig om normalt vejr.

Videnskabelig normalitet er en standard, som man udregner som et gennemsnit af 30 år.

Det seneste er for perioden 1981-2010, og det er altså det, der er normalt lige nu.

Tjek endelig efter. Her er Reims, Paris og Saint-Quentin i Aisne.

This is nice: Champagne and Canard

Somebody has to do the hard work.

So we did a bit of tasting for you last sunday.

Which champagne would you choose to accompany Confit de canard?

Well, from our range Selection is an excellent choice. It is the elder of our Blanc de Blancs vintage champagnes.

In Danmark you will find this 2006-vintage at Thingstedhus in Østjylland and at ChampagneSelskabet in Copenhagen. You may also find it in the caves of Restaurant Knapp close to Aabenraa in Soenderjylland. Abroad Luxembourg residents or visitors may want to pop by Danish Deli for a bottle.

So we cover just a tiny part of the globe. And you are elsewhere? Drop us a


mail and let's find a way to provide you.


The Confit you will have to find yourselves.

The one we had has spend its life running around outside our neighbourhood Auberge. In this outdoor Birdland.


Dinner: Leak soup, no champagne.

Excellent tasting.

Af med trådene

En af foråretes sysler er endnu en spadseretur ned gennem alle vinrækker.

Ned med trådene er målet.

I vores parcel i Soulières har vi tråde både forneden og midt på spalieret. De skal holde vinrankerne på plads mellem en dobbelt wire, som vi løfte på plads på hver sin side af pælene.

Foreløbig skal de kommende skyd have plads til at vokse, som de vil.

Derfor lægger vi trådene ned over det hele hvert forår i løbet af en længere spadseretur.

Jeg er i gang.

Nye bobler til folket

Du har set det før, vores bord, vores tomme bord, der flaske for flaske fyldes op.

Lidt af et standardsyn før en tur.

Heldigvis for det betyder, at lageret er nede.

Derfor er det sådan set fint nok med en halv dag, hvor vi klistrer etiketter og taper kasser.

Rosé bobler
Denne gang går turen til Danmark.

Vi er glade for at kunne fortælle dig, at du snart kan forsyne dig med mere Noirs & Blancs i Østjylland og Blanc de Blancs i Torvehallerne.

Og Rosé til det spæde forår. Både til Hovedlandet og Hovedstaden À la votre !

Vinens safter siler

Foråret er foreløbigt køligt. Men varmt nok til at vinstokkene er i gang med arbejdet.

Det første synlige tegn er, når deres safter siler fra beskæringens sårflader.

Først fra de klip, er sidder tættest ved foden, siden også højere oppe.

Tåretiden - les pleurs - kan vare længe eller kort. Det afhænger af temperaturerne. (Andre tåreår)

Det er vores parcel les Crochettes - det er den, vi normalt viser gæster, fordi vi kan gå derned fra gården - der leverer tårerne i første omgang.

Interessant nok er det de planter, der står nederst i rækkerne, der er begyndt at lække tårer først. Stik imod teorien, for de er beskåret sidst, og burde vel nok derfor vente lidt. Oven i købet er det en blanding af Pinot Noir og Pinot Meunier, der - stadig ifølge teorien - udvikler sig senere end Chardonnay, der vokser foroven.

Nå, men sådan er der så meget. De har åbenbart ikke læst teorien.

Visits and the AOC

We had visitors in Soulières a fews days ago.


"Dear Solveig and Alain,

Thank you very much for the kind reception in your exciting and historic surroundings.

Your wonderful bubbles have reached our cellar well - now we will drink them."


So nice to hear. As we enjoy these visits as well.

To AOC or not
There is usually a good exchange between our explanations and questions from our guests.

This time we talked about the AOC: the area where we can grow grapes to make champagne.

Part of the slope above is in the AOC and the other part is not. Which does not make a lot of sense to anyone.

So why don't we just plant it with vines and sell the result as Tange-Gérard sparkling?

Well, I guess we are too small and too busy to be the ones to test the limits.


More visits
More visits are up in the next weeks. I guess these visitors will be charged with good questions as well. We don't always have good answers, but we really do try.

Gæster på vingården

Hvis ellers solen er med os, regner vi med at vise nogenlunde denne udsigt frem for jer de næste uger.

Vi har en del gæster, der kommer forbi for at se nærmere på vores vinstokke og høre lidt om, hvad vi går og laver for tiden.

Det er dejligt, vi vil gerne vise frem, og vi afsætter fortrinsvis vores champagne via stalddøren.

Kom derfor glad, men send en mail, så vi er hjemme til at tage imod dig.

Torsdag den 27. marts er vi på pletten mellem kl. 13.30 og kl. 15.30, hvis du har lyst til at besøge os.

Binding the branches

Spring is here.

The vines are pruned, and now their branches are up for binding.

Each plant is attached with small pieces of very thin wires which will help the plant to carry considerable weight later.

This procedure will also shape the plants. In the plot of les Crochettes all the vines are pruned according to the Chablis-method with three arms of one, two and three years of age.

When they are attached they will look like three fingers of different lenghts that have each their space at the wires. This helps each plant to eventually gets its part of the sun and air.

Stay tuned, I will put more pictures and a video to show you this part of the work.


So far there is no visible sight of growth. With the warmer weather - we expect 17 degrees Celsius later this week - it may be a matter of time before the buds will grow.

The basics of Chardonnay

This is one of our Chardonnay vines before the pruning.

To prune a vine is a matter of generation. Only buds on one year old wood will be fertile, so our job is basically to make sure that there is always wood of this age on the vines.

Our Chardonnays are pruned Chablis style as they like it. This method leaves a number of older branches - we have two - a new one, and most important of all a small branch, that will eventually provide the new branch of next year.

Four elements is what we need year after year.


Here they are, this is all that is left when the pruning is done.

We've got three hectares of vineyards with about 8.000 plants in each so there is quite a few branches to cut. This is why we can spend a full winter with this task.

Well, now it is over.

The binding is up, and then the vines are ready to rock 'n' roll through the season

Final result is Chardonnay grapes that we use for six of seven of our champagnes.

So far, spring is very young, and we have seen no sight of buds that grow.

Æg og bobler

 

Jeg har set de første billeder.

Det er sikkert stadig svinedyrt, men altså atter stenbidertid i Danmark.

Æg og bobler er et herligt makkerskab. Til weekend og hverdag. Jeg siger det bare.

God fredag.

Sweet rosés

We are in the process of tasting the vin clairs, the still wines, of last years grapeharvest.

An opportunity were several palates are gathered thus an occasion to check other parameters as well.

So we tried the assembled rosé champagne with three different dosages: The current one, a less sweet and a sweeter one.

Just for the fun.

At the moment less sweetened champagnes are fashion. The customers ask for them. The funny thing is however, when the less sweet or even not sweetened at all champagnes are tasted blindly, most people prefer some sugar after all. When they don't know what they drink, that is.

Around this table the tasting confirms what we already know. The majority of ten winegrowers from Vertus and some neighbourhood villages like our own prefer less sugar.

At the moment the Rosé d'Assemblage is at a dosage of 6,5 grammes of sugar/liter which is low. After all a brut usually begins at 7 g/l. This group however would prefer even less: Just 5 g/l is the preferred taste. Only a small minority goes for 8 g/l.

However, the dosage varies with the years. As it should since the vintages vary themselves.

Holidays and vineyards

Here in Champagne kids have traditionally learned to deal with vineyards from their parents.

Nowadays however, kids in the vineyards are a rare sight. After all they are in school most of the time most days. Fair enough, there is much to learn.

Shared lives
However, we strongly believe that it is good for kids to see what we do, and good for families to share daily life and work when this is possible.

This means that I will come to school whenever they ask for parents to accompany.

And also, that the kids will come with us in the vineyards when it is holidays and sometimes weekends.

This is how we all learn about each others life, when we share we understand a bit more.

Collect the wood
To collect the wood from the pruned plants is a grand old task of kids here in Champagne. This I learnt from one of our former neighbours, who must be close to 70 years these days and who trained herself with her father many years ago in what seems another life.

I am quite happy to see my kids follow this path. Even it is just a holiday thing