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
Harvesting 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).
In 1812 André-Michel Pierlot moved to Tours-sur-Marne to start his own business. In the late 19th century, with no heir to succeed him, he transferred ownership to his cellar master Eugène Laurent, who died shortly afterwards. It was his widow Mathilde-Emilie Perrier who thought of linking their two family names to create the brand name Laurent Perrier. In 1939, Marie-Louise de Nonancourt, née Lanson, purchased the House for her son, Bernard – a larger-than-life personality who made Laurent-Perrier the success it is today.
The Champagne Houses
