Extreme challenge from april to harvest

The grapeharvest is finished at Champagne Tange-Gerard: A bit less than 27.000 kilos of grapes, cultivated according to organic principles, are currently being turned into wine.

Our expectations are postive. Despite lower yields than the 10.000 kilos/hectare we aimed at, the grapes were of better quality than we dared hope for in our most difficult year ever.

We hope to present you nice bubbles some years from now.

Finishing one of the 200 meters long lines of the low plot of Pinot Meunier in Loisy-en-Brie.

Season: Maybe you heard of the frost damage in spring? On April 6th, many of our Chardonnays were close to unfold their first leaf. Instead their feet were covered in snow and a big number of buds froze. Many weeks passed before they grew again, and for the rest of the season, their development would lag behind that of the Pinots.

The flowering of the vines took place in beautiful sunshiny weather in June and finished fast.

Some weeks later, rain poured down in abundant quantities.

From mid July we got busy dealing with downy mildew and botrytis followed by powdery mildew shortly after. The rest of summer until just before the mid September was a long fight with cupper, sulphur and various plants to stop disease from spreading.

We can’t imagine a more challenging start of our organic conversion. A rather extreme version of otherwise classic summer in Champagne: a short period of warmth followed by rain, rain and rain with temperatures that benefit the development of fungus.

Only a miraculous change of weather a few days before the harvest start prevented what looked like catastrophy for us. But eventually sunshine arrived and made all the difference.

Chardonnays from our low plot in Loisy-en-Brie where we picked clusters of great - and for this year - abundant quality.

Grapeharvest: However, a big difference of maturity between the black grapes and the white ones challenged us. We hired few pickers this year to slow down the speed of the picking which combined with a perfect mix of sun and warmth made the Chardonnays gain more sugar whilst we picked the Pinots.

Our experienced team had to sort grapes in front of the plants a well as each time a bucket was emptied to avoid sending grapes with powdery mildew to the presses. Rather cool nights helped keeping the botrytis at a low level.

Then finally, we had rain a few days before the start and we consider it part of the miracle, because the water helped the clusters gain some more grammes.

All these elements are part of a season, that now seems to end well for us this far. But not even one week ago, we wondered if we were facing a catastrophy regarding how much and what we would be able to produce.

Vinification: Sugar levels in the Pinots and acidity in the Chardonnays are at remarkable levels this year. Currently, both are nicely moving towards the state of still wine. The first alcoholic fermentation takes places in steel vats and will be coming to an end after about two weeks. As usual for our Chardonnays, malolactique fermentation will be avoided.

As new wines are not very stable, they will need settling and resting before we begin tasting them in some months time. Only then can we form a better idea on the possible quality of the future champagnes from this challenging year.

But several years will pass before the 2021 champagne will be out of the caves to reach your glass.

After hours during the grape harvest at Champagne Tange-Gerard: Tradition and Ratafia are often favourites.

In our shelves: In the meantime your glass does not need to stay empty.

We will likely present a new single from 2017 during the next year. And Solliage, Solliphere and Sollissime are still available together with the classic non vintages of Tradition and Noirs & Blancs, the pink Rosé d’Assemblage and Rosé de Saignée as well as Blanc de Blancs 2014 and Selection 2011.

We believe that they are all fantastic to celebrate the very special days, yours and ours. Or to let any ordinary day rise to the skies with a whoosh and bubbles in your glass. Just because we like to. Just now and then. We look forward to hearing from you.

Harvestgreetings from Alain Gérard & Solveig Tange,

Soulières, late september 2021

The team of 2021 next to the mixed plot of les Crochettes in Soulières.