Historia
Philosophy
As the founder of the Suenen Champagne, I have assigned my philosophy to our wines and land since 2009. I wish to convert a unique agricultural produce into wine, in order to authentically represent the essence of my land. As a result, our wine growing and producing techniques will reflect the evolution of our wine year after year.
The fragility of my land and wine require care and a particular attention to the healthiness of the soil. We have reintroduced mechanical work in order to reduce packing down of the soil, thus increasing breathing and promoting land healthiness. By feeding the vine with its essential needs the growing of the roots is stimulated daily, allowing them to reach deep into the chalk layer to extract the finest in minerals and authenticity.
An exhaustive survey was carried out for each plot of land that constitutes my heritage. Each year, with the collaboration of their son Emmanuel, Claude and Lydia Bourguignon from the French soil analysis laboratory LAMS, select vine plots to conduct a detailed land analysis. I truly think that the organic element is my basic work tool and is therefore extremely valuable. Vine grows thanks to the energy found in soil and air. Brought to maturity, the greatly expected grapes will be picked in profusion at a precise moment.
Oak barrels and tuns are used for the wine making process, perpetrating my grandfather’s legacy in the wine and spirit store. I have added an ovoid concrete tun and locust tree barrels in the historical part of the store. The use of wood an earthy natural material, allows the micro-oxygenation process our the wine barrels. Besides, I like to use enamelled tuns for some of our non-vintage wine year.
Thanks to a long aging process, wine feeds on its own organic material during a six to nine-month period. Each year, conditions and production quality define the use of either poor or rich lees. Nowadays, natural yeast is partly used for fermentation of the grapes. In the future and for a first period of time, we are planning on using only our own natural yeast on selected land plots. As for the malolactic fermenting process, it is a natural and time consuming action of the wine itself that needs to be regulated for certain wines and in very specific cases. Finally, wine bottling takes place only when longer and sunnier days come closer again at the Suenen Champagne vineyards.
History
One has to travel back in time to understand the origins of the Suenen Champagne. Since 1898 generations of strong-minded and wine- passionate men and women have succeeded one another…
It is said that our family name comes from “Svenen”, a Belgium family who came to live in Damery… the home of my great grandfather. With his wife Eliza-Victorine Billiard, they gave birth to a son, Joseph, in 1871. Wine was of course not on the agenda yet. Grapes were collected from the Cramant vineyards and sold to the existing reknown wine-making houses.
Joseph and his wife Laurentine Robert settled into the family household and had two children: Paulette and Marcel, my great grandfather born in 1899. Today still and in that same house, my grandmother’s souvenirs attest to the genesis of the Suenen Champagne brand.
In 1924 Marcel married Simone Stourbe. They decided to commercialise a single vat of dry Blanc de Blancs named “Champagne Suenen Stourbe”, hand-bottled and stamped by Simone herself.
Their sons Bernard and André took over the trade. Bernard and his wife soon opened a deli grocery in Cramant. During the fifties, with the birth of my father Daniel and his brother Jean Claude, our family grew bigger. As the latter chose to follow a teaching career, my father showed a great interest in wine growing since a very young age. Both my grandfather and father worked together for 18 years, until Daniel took control of the business. At only 25, his desire to develop the vineyard’s activity flourished and he was soon in search of new land plots to purchase. My father’s work contributed to increasing the quality and sales of the Suenen Champagne. Thanks to his determination, the choice in the range of our champagne widened and the first vintage wines were bottled. Sales increased from 4000 to 20 000 bottles. Then he married my mother Chantal Person de la Villa, and started a new generation to whom I belong…