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 month
In good years, those wines produced in excess of the cap set for each harvest are set aside for release in the event of a future harvest shortfall. Known as the “inter-professional Champagne wine reserve”, these reserve stocks represent a particularly ingenious solution to the problem of meeting market demand in good and bad years alike, with no loss of quality.
Champagne House Henriot was founded in 1808 when Nicolas Henriot ‘s widow Apolline took over the running of the estate. The 19th century saw a notable growth in the number of Chardonnay Grand Cru holdings. In 2022 Maisons & Domaines Henriot, owners of fine wine properties and estates in France and the USA, merged with Artémis Domaines.
The Champagne Houses
