Champagne holds its breath until the Saints de Glace (Ice Saints) are safely past (11, 12, 13 May), dreading a spring freeze that might destroy the future harvest’s fruitful buds.
Desuckering removes the non-fruitful buds (suckers or gourmands). Any unwanted growth is removed to optimise sugar concentration and encourage good sap flow.
The Champagne month by monthHarvesting in Champagne is an entirely manual process, selecting whole, undamaged clusters that must remain that way right up to the point of pressing. This is essential to avoid staining the musts, bearing in mind that 70% of Champagne wines are made from black grapes.
The actual start of picking varies with each producer but cannot commence before the date fixed by the Comité Champagne on the basis of reference values established for each vine parcel and grape variety, using the hundreds of thousands of samples collected by the"Réseau Matu"(Ripening Observation Network).
Pierre-Nicolas Perrier and Rose-Adélaïde Jouët shared a passion for nature and the arts. She was a young woman of culture from a merchant family; he was a skilled winegrower and botanist. They married in 1810 and founded the House of Perrier-Jouët the following year. The House now belongs to the Pernod-Ricard Group.
The Champagne Houses