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
Champagne bottles come in many different sizes, ranging from the classic Champagne bottle (75cl) and the magnum (1.5l) to very large bottles with biblical-sounding names. These include the Jeroboam (3l), the Nebuchadnezzar (15l) and the 30-litre Melchizedec or Midas – the mightiest of them all, standing 1.10m tall and holding the equivalent of 40 standard bottles.
Jean Gosset is the earliest recorded ancestor of this noble Aÿ family. The House itself was founded in 1584 by his grandson, Pierre, at a time when Champagne wine was not yet sparkling. This makes it the oldest of all the Champagne Houses. Fourteen generations after Pierre, the Gosset family business merged with the Renaud-Cointreau family group, which is now writing the next chapter in the story of this House.
The Champagne Houses
