2023 is here. Happy New Year. Bonne Année. Godt nytår
The first day of the grape harvest 2022 at Champagne Tange-Gérard began in Loisy-en-Brie September 2nd.
The tradition in Champagne is to exchange New Year’s wishes and it’s valid to do it all January. We gather with different people several times to share a Galette des Rois cake with champagne. A rare occasion to choose a sweeter rather than a dry champagne. This is our occasion to wish you well: May 2023 bring better news than 2022. Yet, we hope that sunshine did occasionally light up your path too.
We were, for a start, incredibly relieved to work through a quiet growth season as opposed to 2021. The year was warmer than any year measured ever. Same story every year since 2014 and not only in Champagne. These temperatures combined with competition between vines and grass for access to water and minerals push our vineyards to the limit and sometimes beyond. In 2022 we saw some of our vines suffer badly. We look for answers and think they may be beyond what the AOC rules allow us currently. Bottom line: A quiet growth season does not mean easy business as usual. Last year we joined several groups of winegrowers to exchange with them about how to deal with the challenges we all face.
The wines of 2022 develop well. Generally, the grapes received a record amount of sunshine with between 10 and 30% more than average compared to the last 10 years. Subsequently, the musts were sweet and tasty but not very acid. Certainly a year to take utmost care of the acidity, you have left. We have always blocked the malolactic fermentation in our single plot wines this far, so this year made no difference for the Pinot Meunier wine from one of our Loisy-en-Brie plots. Currently, it finishes a stay in oak barrels to develop more complexity. In spring, it will be bottled and then aged for some years in the caves.
2023 will be our third year with 100% organic methods with the full compulsory program for biodynamic sprays which proved its worth as a supplement in 2021. We bought equipment to allow us to work this way, and waited all year to get a custommade cupper tank fitted to the machine. Surely, you have heard of lack of materials? Cupper was just one of them, and now we have a nice tank of steel instead. We count ourselves lucky that we did not need the machine much in 2022.
Our single plot champagnes are important walking stones towards organic champagne. Currently, we have three different single champagnes; Solliage (2013), Sollissime (2015) and Solliphere (vintages 2014 and 2017). This autumn, we plan to present our first cuvée with an additional touch from oak barrels.
A joyful tickle of all our senses is what champagne is all about. Starry moments that light up in many lovely ways. When you pour a glass, you sprinkle that magi-cal dust of champagne to let the moment sparkle even more. The bubbles con-nect us with our senses. Enjoy the ride and then… shine. And, just in case, we have made you a Galette des rois recipe just here. Bon appetit
New Year’s greetings from Soulières
Solveig Tange & Alain Gerard
Alain Gérard with Solliphere, 100% Chardonnay single plot from Loisy-en-Brie, in the recent 2017 vintage.