Winemaking

When the grapes reach the pressing centre, each plot is pressed within a day.

The same care and respect goes into making the wine as it does in growing the vine.

We don’t try to shape it but we work to bring out its best by giving it room to express itself. That way it brings out all the subtlety and complexity of its terroir, climate and natural or man-powered events that have made the harvest what it is during a vintage year.

Some of our wine is aged in 500 litre oak barrels known as “demi-muid”.

The climate conditions in our region vary significantly from one year to the next. The standard of the grapes, so the must and wine they produce, depend on factors as wide-ranging as frost, sunshine, rain etc. Blending draws on the diversity of nature: the nature of the plots, grape varieties and years.

Blending enables us to:

• capture a year in a vintage if we think it’s exceptional enough that we don’t need to use reserve wine.
• showcase a single variety by making a blanc de blancs or blanc de noirs Champagne with a signature flavour.
• celebrate a terroir, meaning the wine from a village or specific place, often a single plot with its own unique features.

Blending is a unique moment in the winemaking process, it’s the ultimate sharing experience with something secretive about it.

The wine is then bottled so it can ferment to make it a sparkling wine. This process is called racking.

Sugar and yeast are added to the wine so it can ferment.
This forms bubbles in the wine which we call “prise de mousse”.

The bottles are disgorged a few months before they reach your table. Any impurities are removed by the pressure in the bottle at this stage before liqueur is added. This is called the dosage. Depending on how much is added, the Champagne will be demi-sec, brut, extra brut or non dosé (from the most to the least amount of sugar). We taste the vintages every time we disgorge them with different dosages so we can find the one that brings the best out of the champagne.