The plot of les Crochettes is the oldest vineyard of ours, planted in 1964. The grapes for our samples to measure and decide for the first possible harvest date in Soulieres are from these vines.

by Solveig Tange

In Champagne we are getting ready for the annual bootcamp.

The grapeharvest will begin in a few days at Champagne Tange-Gerard. We will begin on August 24th with the black grapes in Loisy-en-Brie, where about 2/3 of our vineyards are situated.

In this post, you can read more about the grapes of the year. They are of good quality, healthy, after a season without major obstacles.

Once again, we have followed how the weather has changed. Especially since 2015, it’s obvious how the summers are now warm and dry rather than cool and wet as they used to. 2020 is no exception.

Sampling to find a date

Our region likes to praise itself for its system of winegrower correspondents, almost one in each village. Their task is to examine the grapes in the weeks before the grape harvest.

In Soulieres, Alain collects and examines grapes from our two plots before he presses them manually.

All data is gathered by the Comité Champagne (please read more about this organization in the Dictionary part) to prepare statistics that are the basis of a technical synthesis, authored by the researchers of the Comité. These letters are a key element in the evaluations we make ourselves these days to decide when to harvest our vineyards.

From weeks down to days

In the region of Champagne, good grapes contain sugar to provide a still wine of close to 11% vol after the first alcoholoc fermentation. Likewise, a good level of acidity is crucial for the freshness of the champagne.

I have lived in Champagne for close to 17 years. Through most of the time, the winegrower correspondents have had 4-5 weeks to measure their grapes. The result? Many numbers and statistics and quite a few technical recommendations and conclusions. Time to get back in tracks after the August holidays. That was the old days ;-)

This year, we were back from our break before August 1st. Never happened before in those 17 years.

Just enough time for two samples with two days between them. We received one technical newsletter in return. The meeting are through, and saturday we could publish the start date.

Samples from the Crocettes-plot, randomly chosen for the measures that Alain performs for the association of AVC. They will be the basis of deciding the first possible day of harvest in Soulieres.

Final maturation of grapes

So what does it look like this far then, you may ask? What do you have in those vineyards? How much?

Well, healthy good-looking grapes.They have seen a lot of sun and a bit of rain as well, occasionally. Now, in these last days before take-off they stock up on sugars.

At the moment, they are still not quite there. Lucky, as we are not either.

The numbers:

1) Pinot Noir - 8,7% - 8,0% on the 12th and the 10th of August

2) Pinot Meunier - 7,9% - 7,5% - same dates

3) Chardonnay - 6,3% - 7,1%. - same dates

The percentages expresses the result from randomly collected clusters, approximately 25 per sample. Alain presses the grapes, measures the temperature and density of the must to determine the level of sugar.

The Chardonnay-sample seems to have lost sugar in the two days gone by. This is probably mainly due to different levels of maturation between the two samples.

Green harvest

Through summer, Alain has removed grapes in the plots in Loisy-en-Brie.

“It will be a small harvest anyway”, he and many others have written, said and continuously repeated since the spring. The crisis, you know.

Now in Loisy-en-Brie, quite a few clusters have been grilled into absolute oblivion after two short periods of very high temperatures in the first days of August. 20-30% are as dry as raisins in one of the Chardonnay-plots after the first peak, he estimated at that time. It’s never easy to evaluate how grapes are lost.

Maybe it will not matter anyway.

Wait to agree on kilos

So far, there is still no agreement on the amount of grapes to pick up. However, the first growers have started harvesting. The kilos are agreed by champagnehouses and winegrowers. But this year it has not been possible to decide for anything yet.

Our position is that we grow grapes to make champagne, and we prefer to use everything we’ve got.

Our metods are expensive. High costs and low income is not a great match. We sincerely hope for a decent conclusion on August 18th, date of the next meeting between the two parties.

The quality is top. Amongst others, the experts of the Comité Champagne qualify it no less than “excellent”.

Especially if we do our job these last days well, which is the plan, obviously. Like any other year.

Alain presses each grape variety individually, then measures the density of their sugar. This provides an idea of the maturity of the plot.

General: early, record

The more global synthesis from the Comité Champagne follows what we have noticed ourselves.

The main conclusions this far are:

a super early year
a maturation with dynamics to beat all records
potentially high level of alcohol, high level of acidity and still rather low maturity
full maturity expected around potential alcohol levels of 10,5-11% vol for Chardonnays and Pinot Noir and around 10,0-10,5% vol for Pinot Meunier
very healthy grapes, a few plots have been attacked by the fungal disease oidium and they must be watched carefully

This means that the grapes in most places can be left to mature for some more time.

Courage needed

The grapes ought to be left to mature more. Also when they have reached the degree where they would be harvested some years ago.

The difference is the climate, much drier: wHen it does not rain, there is not a big risk of disease and grey rots. Even less when they has hardly been any problem at an earlier stage of the growth.

The objective: grapes that are more mature make better wines.

We have tried to pick our own grapes as close to 11% vol as we could since 2013.

Superfast maturation

Finally, I find it interesting to mention how the authors of the synthesis at Comité Champagne explain how the grapes in the heatwave of the last weeks have gained what is the equivalent of 2,6% vol for Chardonnays and a bit less for the Pinot types.

Something similar has never been recorded in Champagne before, they say.

I’d like to add, that we have seen quite a few small and big signs of a different climate these last years. Especially and more visibly since 2015.

This far, it provides us wonderful champagnes - thank you - but it does also show us, that we have to work according to a different and in fact rather unknown weather pattern. As it is happening.

Looking forward to the vintage of 2020 though.

Early grapeharvest from August 24th