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
All Champagne wines must spend at least 15 months aging in the bottle before release, rising to three years for vintage wines. In practice, the Champagne Houses cellar their wines for much longer: 2-3 years for non-vintage Champagne, and at least 4-10 years, if not more, for vintage Champagne.
Edmond Cheurlin planted his first vines in 1898 in Celles-sur-Ource on the Côte des Bar. Veuve Cheurlin was established by his grandson Alain in the following century (1978). Ten years later he took command of Jean Arnoult, the oldest Champagne House in the Aube region (1919), owned by his wife Chantal Sandrin.
The Champagne Houses
