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 Salon was willed into being by Aimé Salon, who crafted his first vintage in 1905. The wines are exclusively single vineyard, single varietal and single vintage, sourced entirely from the 100% Chardonnay Mesnil-sur-Oger Grand Cru on the Côte des Blancs.
The Champagne Houses
