Pinch punch and all that as the first of September is now with us.  A busy month on all fronts as the different European countries start to rub the holiday sand from their eyes.  Who knows how things will pan out in this sprint up to Christmas but one thing is for certain - it is looking to be extremely busy and hectic at Park Lane.  Two client intranet sites go live this month, the interest and feedback from our own site has been very significant and a beta version will hit the decks around week 40.  The Frisky Partridge (our hamper range) has undergone a serious nip and tuck, will also be available online from the beginning of October and the new range coming looks to be very exciting, diverse and eclectic - WARNING: the pink port is lovely, but best not to sample the whole bottle solo and in one sitting!

I thought it might be interesting if we try and follow some key production moments for champagne through these jottings and September is a great time to start - harvest time.  Typically the harvest in Champagne commences during the second week of September.  This year, our main producer is starting on the 10th and thereafter is a frantic 14 days while grapes are cut from the vines by hand, loaded into crates, transported by lorry back to the pressoir at the house, are noted, weighed, pressed and filtered with the resultant juice tagged and bagged (stored in temperature controlled stainless steel tanks while the first mysterious fermentation occurs and those early 8-10 degrees or so of alcohol arrive over the following month).

It always amazes me that the Nomine family’s 22 hectares of vineyards sounds simple enough but in reality aren’t.  It is not just 22 hectares in one place right on the doorstop - making the harvesting element straightforward.  Far from it:  all 30,000 hectares of grapes in the region are harvested in this small time (and hopefully weather) window and most houses have vines spread out all over the area.  The Nomine 22 hectares are no exception with individual plots of vineyard spread right across the Champagne Appellation - some pinot meunier grapes are  grown on slopes in the Marne Valley over 100km away from the house!  The logistic operation of cutting the grapes and getting them back to the house is a marvel in itself.  The 35 hour working week EU directive that is so rigorously observed normally in France is exempted by law during harvest time (how very French!) and itinerant labourers from all over Europe descend on the region to help;  the Nomine family have been fortunate to have a Portuguese team for over thirty years with many of  the same faces still appearing year after year.

Lorries run to and fro all day and most of  the night, bringing their precious cargoes of pinot meunier, pinot noir or chardonnay back to their owners.  There is, obviously, a huge trade in grapes and it is now when the CIVC (Comite Interprofessional du Vin de Champagne - essentially the governing body for champagne wine, responsible for ensuring the quality is always and only perfect and to which all producers must comply, respect and obey) assesses the grape quality which ultimately but indirectly sets the price for the different grape types.  Will LVMH again be looking to buy up every packet of grapes they can, I wonder?   For the increasingly few remaining recoltant producers like Nomine where only the grapes they grow are used in their wines, harvest is the reward for the long months of vineyard toil: clipping, training, pruning, fertilising and generally nurturing.

So, it is quite easy to see why the tagging and bagging of each load of grapes that arrives is so important to the producer.  Not only are the individual grape varieties pressed individually (obviously) but in fact individual grape varieties from individual villages are pressed and stored individually.  This is terroir in action:  chardonnay from slope one in village one shows different characteristics to chardonnay from slope two in village one and in any quality producer’s mind, these unique flavours must be preserved and kept separate - ready for all the excitement of blending.  More of that anon.

And all of this for each and every bottle of champagne - not a lot of people know that!   Do we need any more reason to break out the bubbly?

Is this interesting?  I hope so!  Champagne is an amazing wine.  Harvest is an amazing time and there is so much to say that I can only apologise for all the omissions an aficionado might spot.  If you have any queries or questions, please do contact me directly and I will try and help.

Best wishes

Alastair