After the harvest, the grapevines lose their leaves, making room for maintenance of the plants. Winter will mainly be devoted to the modelling the vines, which is called 'la taille'. In the Champagne region 'la taille' is regulated. It starts as soon as the leaves have fallen, it is interrupted from mid-December to mid-January in order to respect the winter rest period of the plants, and afterwards it starts again until the end of March. Modelling ensures a smooth sap flow to the fruit buds. It gives shape to the grapevine and prepares subsequent work when the leaves begin to grow, which is called "la taille en vert" (green modelling).
The winemaker will keep the leaf growth under control, let the sunlight between the plants, and provide good airflow around the grapes. In early April, after the ‘taille’, the tying of branches starts. The fast-growing branches are placed around the load-bearing iron wires and tied up with small iron wires or threads of bio-degradable material. Around mid-May, when the plants begin to grow, various activities are planned in order to guarantee the yield and quality of the harvest. They are called "les travaux en vert”. We remove all non-fruiting buds growing on the old branches. It is manual labour, and we are going repeatedly through the vineyard.
The first fermentation of the champagne wine is the alcoholic fermentation, which converts the must into wine. The yeasts 'eat' the sugar and thus produce alcohol and carbon dioxide, along with other elements that will characterize the flavour of the wine. This fermentation occurs just after the pressing, in stainless steel vats. The malolactic fermentation is the process that converts apple acids (malum is Latin for apple) into lactic acid (lac is Latin for milk) and carbon dioxide. They let the flavours evolve in the wine. The blending of champagne wines is a response to the volatile nature: parcels, harvests and years can lead to quite divergent results. The winemaker will blend wines so as to achieve clearly more than the sum of the qualities mixed. One can assemble wines of several parcels, of different grape varieties (chardonnay, pinot noir, pinot meunier) or of several years. Of course the wine maker can also decide to only assemble one of these dimensions: for example a ‘millésime’ if the vintage of a year is sufficiently exceptional to be elaborated without reserve wines, or an exceptional grape variety as our Chardonnay Blanc de Blancs with its typical flavour. One could even assemble wines of a parcel, a municipality or a hamlet. Filling the bottles – called the ‘tirage’ - may not happen before 1 January of the year following the vintage. Filling, followed by fermentation in the bottle, are intended to make a foaming wine, hence the French name "prise de mousse". To achieve this fermentation a liqueur is added, called the ‘liqueur de tirage’, which is composed of sugar, yeast and a remuage component. After the bottles are filled, they are sealed by a cap in polyethylene, called the "bidule", and then closed with a crown cap. Then they are taken to the basement and placed "sur lattes", i.e. piled in long rows with wooden strips in order to reach more stability. During this fermentation, which lasts 6 to 8 weeks, the yeast will consume all sugars, and bring in the wine next to alcohol and carbon dioxide also esters and superior alcohol contributing to the typical flavour characteristics of the wine.
Far away from the light the bottles remain in our basement for a long ripening period. The basement plays a key role in this important stage of the wine-making process, with a constant temperature of 12 °C. This maturation, which is called in French "maturation sur lies" (*), brings very specific aromas in the champagne wine. Between the bottling and marketing must be at least 15 months, at least 12 of which "sur lies". For millésimes that period will be three years. These time limits imposed by law, which are already important compared to other sparkling wines, are in reality much longer. See the tokens of our Champagnes with give precise information about our retention periods.