Our third tour to Champagne has come round so quickly! 22 of us assembled at our hotel in Reims, and enjoyed a glass of what else, while greeting companions from previous tours and getting to know new compatriots.
We walked round the corner to Le Condorcet restaurant, which put on a lovely dinner with friendly service, and a Rhone white and red to contrast with our champagne. The weather was hot and we were very happy to be sitting outside. It was still light as we strolled back to the hotel, Reims was lively and those of us who had not already been enjoying some holiday en route began to feel properly in the mood.
On Thursday morning we boarded our coach at 9am prompt and headed south to the Montagne de Reims. The sun shone on the UNESCO recognised landscape of villages and vineyards, that stretched across the rolling hills in all directions. The vines were vibrant green, people were working in the vineyards and our route took us through a series of Grand Cru villages, culminating in Bouzy.
Here our first visit was to André Clouet, a long established producer whose current family scion Jean François is a prominent member of the grower champagne makers who are changing our understanding of the wines of the region. Victor and Ambroise hosted our visit, which started in the cellars dug in the 18th century, surprisingly deep under the original farmhouse. Around every turn there was another stack of bottles on their sides, the wine that had undergone secondary fermentation still resting on the lees, from a variety of vintages, lieux-dits and special cuvées. Each had the precise number of bottles in the stash clearly written on a chalk board, so we resisted the temptation of popping one in a pocket!
Back up on the surface our vineyard visit detoured via the family’s elderly Citroën car which needed some mechanical tlc to enable it to take people on vineyard visits. Amid the vines Victor talked about the current season – conditions so warm that grapes are 10-15 days ahead of their usual stage of evolution. So long as enough rain falls at the right times in the next 3 months the harvest should be magnificent.
We spent some time briefly in the winery examining the various tanks that allow Clouet to keep wine from different plots of land separate (some named by Jean François as a child to make them less scary). Last year’s harvest has just been bottled (along with the yeast and sugar that will encourage secondary fermentation), so the tanks were empty.
Our tasting of four wines was great. Victor explained that they disgorge the wines as late as possible before shipping them to customers so they are at peak condition, Tim took the chance to explain about dosage and how many producers are becoming more restrained in their addition of sweetened wine after disgorgement, as their grapes are ripening more consistently.
Three champagnes took us from their mainstream non vintage wine through the ‘Dream 2015’ vintage, and their top of the range un jour de 1911, and we finished with a really beautiful still white, made from top Chardonnay grapes from the 2018 vintage.
We strolled through Bouzy to Le Bec Fin, a super family run restaurant where we had four local champagnes accompanying our lunch, culminating in a delicious demi sec rosé.
Then round the corner to Champagne Delavenne, another top grower producer. Here we really got into the vineyard, if not literally. Susan, their export manager, took us into the cellars dug by the family in the early 20th century, when the great grandfather of Jean Charles Delavenne decided to make their own wine rather than supplying major champagne houses.
Jean Charles popped in to say hello but he left Susan, whose English was excellent (she’s American) to explain the intricacies of his vineyard practices. He is not only organic, but has adopted lithotherapy, a form of homeopathy, that involves misting vines with spring water that has diluted elixirs that retain a ‘memory’ of the energy from various rocks and minerals. This is the only vineyard where we have ever encountered the concept of lithotherapy (and it’s probably the only one in Champagne). It’s easy to pull a face and think hocus pocus; as with biodynamic approaches, the science feels a bit hard to get behind, but the wines we tasted spoke volumes about the skill of Jean Charles as a vine grower, and wine maker.
Their attention to detail at all parts of the wine making process was apparent as we visited the cellar and winery, even down to the gyrotech wooden crates that they use for remuage (the process of turning a horizontal bottle upright but upside down) which take several days rather than a matter of hours with modern metal gyropallets.
Several generations of Deleavennes married daughters of other vine growers, bringing vineyards from other Grand Cru villages into their toolkit, and our tasting started with a blend of Pinot Noir from Bouzy and Chardonnay from Cramant, then a Blanc de Noirs from Bouzy, a Blanc de Blancs from Cramant and finally a rosé champagne, 17% of the blend being Bouzy Rouge – a still wine made from Pinot Noir grapes that is a speciality of the village that was the choice of French kings.
We had had a busy day, it was very hot, so though we were sorry to leave these lovely people, we did need to cool down! None of us were offering to head out in the vineyards to do some canopy arrangement! An evening stroll around Reims was very appealing..