Nope, not Google fruit but genuine champagne grape fruit!
I was amazed by the amount of unpicked fruit on the vines during my October visit to the Champagne region. The reason was the restriction in yield at harvest due to the excess buildup of bottles as global demand slumped; permitted yield was down from 14,000kg/hectare at 2008 harvest to 9,700 kg/hectare, as I have already covered.
This is not the whole story, though. The Champenois have a cunning buffer stock called blockage which is held by the houses. 
Effectively this is pressed juice that cannot be used for a certain time and which is intended to subsidise yield in the event of a truly awful harvest in the future. 2,000kg/hectare headed to top the blockage stocks up to their maximum limit this year and the balance of the juice went off to become industrial alcohol. As it was such a prolific harvest, the producers could afford to be highly selective - hence why so many grapes were left for the birds. Interestingly, it was mainly black grapes that I spotted on the vines across the region.
What does it mean for us as consumers? That the future is steady and assured I suspect. There is plenty of good quality stock available and great stuff in the pipeline from the harvest of 2009. The easing of demand has taken the relentless growth pressure out of champagne generally and has caused producers to focus again on quality. Hopefully there will also be some fairness on price to act 
as a sort of demand stimulus, particularly while the £/€ equation is so horrid.
There will be a glut of supermarket cut price champagne offers in the UK this year as we run up to Christmas. In fact, this has been the pattern for the past few years so no change there. These headline grabbers are highly restricted offers and are being subsidised by the supermarkets so they can secure our grocery purchases at the same time. Scary fact: Tesco handles 1 in every 4 bottles of wine sold in the UK as an “off” sale, according to the Daily Telegraph on Saturday!
For personalised champagne we see no change at all. The quality of the bubbly is already good and will continue being good. Demand is strong as we receive more and varied requests from different customers. Big format bottles have been surprisingly popular with magnums and jeroboams leading the chase. AND the Christmas rush is on us, somewhat later than usual following the pattern of last year, but nonetheless showing us plenty of challenges to come over the next three weeks.
The Park Lane 2010 plans are for diversification into different markets online - led by our customers and other interested partners. A beta version of the site will arrive with a more focused range of products and enhanced label creation functionality. In the background, however, we will still be spinning the exercise wheel as fast as we can to keep our five star service up to speed. Haven’t we been here before?!
Only 23 online shopping days to go until the big fella is squeezing down your chimney…
several producers commented on my excellent timing as I was caught in those few days when it was possible to see every colour of leaf on the vineyards. I agreed how spectacular the whole area looked - like a giant patchwork quilt. On closer inspection, I was also muddled - why were the browner leaves at the lower levels and the greener ones further up the hills when surely it should be the other way round?
The answer - which does seem like reverse logic - is that the frost hits the valleys first while the vineyards higher up are more protected. The leaves certainly confirmed this explanation. Imagine the effect this has all year round on the individual vineyards - whether rain or sun, snow or frost .
Of course, with champagne the blending process (of grapes and years) is intended to iron out these vagaries, but it still helps to understand all the components of quality. This is what Herve hopes to achieve with his focus on vineyard quality at Ayala.
Fascinating yesterday evening to meet Herve Augustin, President Directeur General of 
