Champange Part 4: How Champagne Was Made --- The Harvest

The book published in 1882 by Henry Vizetelly called CHAMPAGNE: with Notes on the Other Sparkling Wines of France was such an interesting read for me. It is freely available online and published by The Project Gutenberg and if you are a Champagne lover, this is a very good place to begin.
The author of this book, Henry Vizetelly, was interested in wine and Champagne. In the preface to his book, he wrote that he frequented Champagne for 10 years to learn what he could about how Champagne was made. He was also a wine juror for Great Britain at the Vienna and Paris Exhibitions of 1873 and 1878.¹
What intrigued me about reading this book was that it showed illustrations of many historical places that are still in existence today. It also documented how Champagne was made.
Vizetelly documented the harvest with wonderful illustrations that gives us a peak into how things were done in the 1800s. If the vintage was a good one, harvest could have begun as early as the third week in September.

The call was made and people from the neighboring villages would assemble at the marketplace adjacent to the vineyards and the price of a days labor was negotiated. In the 1800s, this was either a franc and a half, with food consisting of three meals, or two francs and a half, rising on exceptional occasions to three francs, without food, children being paid a franc and a half.
The grapes were harvested in the early morning. If the grapes were picked later in the day, the sunlight and heat on the grapes could cause the picked grapes to begin fermenting and this resulted in giving the juice an excess of color. (We do this today, trying to harvest the grapes as early in the morning as possible to prevent fermentation of our white grapes.)
The grapes are harvested with scissors or hooked knives, technically termed ‘serpettes,’ and in some vineyards all damaged, decayed, or unripe fruit are removed from the bunches before placing them in the baskets. (We still do this today, removing all of the damaged and decayed fruit in the vineyard before putting the cleaned grapes into the lugs.)

Large carts with railed open sides are continually passing backwards and forwards to pick these baskets up. When the cart was fully loaded, it was driven slowly to the neighboring pressoir (wine press).

Once at the press house, the grapes were stored in a cool place and then weighed or measured before being emptied onto the floor of the press.

In some places, the old-fashioned press, resembling an ordinary cider-press is used. But in other press houses, more powerful presses of a modern invention, worked by a large fly-wheel requiring four sturdy men to turn it, are employed.
The first pressing gives the best wine, but the presses are used twice and even three times to extract all the juice. After three pressures the grapes are usually worked about with peels, and subjected to a final squeeze known as the ‘rébêche,’ which produces a sort of piquette, given to the workmen to drink.
The must filters through a wicker basket into the reservoir beneath, whence, after remaining a certain time to allow of its ridding itself of the grosser lees, it is pumped through a tube into the casks. The fermentation begins after approximately 12 days. The wine is then left undisturbed until Christmas.
Here we come to the end of harvest in Champagne in the 1800s. This is not so different from the way we do things now.
References:
1. Illustration from Wikipedia on Henry Vizetelly.
2. Henry Vizetelly, CHAMPAGNE: with Notes on the Other Sparkling Wines of France, 1882, pg. 148-153.

Vintage 2019: Pruning Time

It's that time to get back into the vineyard. Every year we do this and every year we think that we should begin earlier. Checking on my blog, it looks like we began pruning on March 24, in 2018, so we are not too early. We have to once again acclimate our bodies that went into winter dormancy (hibernation) to the physical activity of pruning. This year, we decided to take the cuttings out on a tarp.

Last year, it took us 4 days to take out the cuttings out from the vineyard row and by that time, the grass had grown through some of the cuttings that we had piled up. This year, we hope that by taking the cuttings out as we prune, we will be a little ahead of the curve.
The vines are also still dormant and not pushing their sap so my husband did some research and came up with a paste that could be applied to the pruning wound to prevent bacterial and fungal infections. This solution came from an arborist.

1999 Chateau Palmer

On a recent special occasion we had this 1999 Chateau Palmer with dinner. I remember having Chateau Palmer and blogged about it in 2012, but that bottle was a 1989 Chateau Palmer.
This bottle is 10 years old now but still drinks like a young wine. I tasted beautifully ripe fruit, red raspberries, dark bing cherries and a hint of spice.
On the Chateau Palmer Website, the 1999 notes says that the wine is composed of a blend of 46% Merlot, 48% Cabernet Sauvignon and 6% Petit Verdot. In addition, the Chateau notes mentioned that the 1999 harvest of the Cabernet Sauvignon broke all records for sugar level. The wine can be drunk between 2015 - 2035.

The wine went beautifully with dinner. My husband has perfected the art of slowly smoking a steak on our grill. He puts some hickory chips into aluminum foil and pokes holes into the foil. The pouch then goes onto the grill which is heated. The burner is turned off on the side that the steak is on and the steak is slowly smoked. Depending on the thickness of the steak, it will smoke in the covered grill for any where from one hour to one hour and thirty minutes. My contribution to this meal was the twice baked potato and blanched haricot vert.

Ratatouille for Wine Lovers

We have seen this movie countless of times when it first came out in 2007 since our friend's children were very much into watching this movie. We loved it so much we even have the DVD, but obviously we weren't paying attention to details. But last night, we were watching it again on our regular television broadcasting and certain scenes caught our eye.
First let me set the stage: Ratatouille is an animated film that won an Oscar for Best Animated Feature.
The main characters include:

• Auguste Gusteau (whose first and last names are anagrams of each other), deceased owner of the eponymous restaurant
• Chef Skinner, a diminutive chef who took over ownership of Auguste Gusteau's restaurant after Gusteau's death
• Alfredo Linguini, the son of Auguste Gusteau and Renata Linguini (you don't know this at the start of the movie, it is part of the plot)
• Colette Tatou, chef de partie, who is tasked by Chef Skinner to train Linguini
• Remy, the rat with a desire to become the best chef in Paris
• Anton Ego, a restaurant critic

The premise of this movie is that Remy, the rat, aspires to become the best chef in Paris and his human collaborator, Alfredo Linguini (don't you love that name!) is a willing puppet. Linguini calls Remy, the Little Chef and together they create delicious dishes. Gusteau's Restaurant becomes a place with a buzz. Then, Anton Ego, the arrogant restaurant critic decides to put the renewed Guesteau's to the test.
On the appointed evening, Anton Ego struts into the restaurant and orders whatever the chef has on the menu and a bottle Cheval Blanc 1947. But Gusteau's is out of this legendary vintage and provides Anton Ego with the 1961 Chateau Latour.

(Non-spoiler, spoiler alert): To pair with the Chateau Latour, Remy and Linguini create ratatouille. This is a beautiful part of the movie and if you are a foodie, you can really relate to this scene. On the blogsite Benito's Wine Reviews, he calls the moment that Anton Ego had his first bite of ratatouille, a Ratatouille Moment, that phrase is definitely going into my lexicon.
I later learned that this ratatouille was modeled on the creation by Thomas Keller, of The French Laundry, which Keller named confit byaldi, in honor of the dish's Turkish origins.
This is a movie that will appeal to both children and parents, especially if the parents are foodies. After watching this movie, we really wanted to go out and get the ingredients to make ratatouille, especially Thomas Keller style.
References:
1. Wikipedia Ratatouille, the movie.
2. The illustration is from Benito's Wine Reviews, November 20, 2017.

Update on the Spotted Lanternfly

In November, 2014, our friend alerted us to a new vineyard pest called the spotted lanternfly and I wrote a blog about it: Spotted Lanternfly (Lycorma delicatula). Here is an update on this destructive pest extracted from The Good Fruit Grower.
This map from the New York State Integrated Pest Management Program is color coded to show where there is an infestation of the spotted lanternfly as well as where the spotted lanternfly has been found.

The spotted lanternfly is a leaf hopper and has a wide host preference, sucking sap from woody plants that include fruit trees and landscape trees, but grapevines appear to be a favorite, along with the invasive and pervasive tree-of-heaven.

The problem with the spotted lanternfly is that the egg mass is gray and difficult to spot. In addition, this insect loves to lay eggs on rusty metal, like a railcar, moving trucks, Christmas trees, patio furniture or apple bins, all of which can help to relocate the pest.
Here is what the lifecycle of this pest looks like:

The infestation on grapes vines looks like a nightmare:

References:
1. Kate Prengaman, The Good Fruit Grower, Spotted lanternfly a new grape threat, March 7, 2019.

Champagne Part 3: History - When Champagne Became Bubbly (the Contributions of Jeanne Alexandrine Louise Mélin Pommery)

When we left the Veuve Clicquot Champagne Part 3: History - When Champagne Became Bubbly (the Contributions of the Veuve Clciquot), the year was 1866. The Grande Dame Clicquot was at the Château de Boursault, when on July 29, 1866, she died at the age of 89.
The Veuve Clicquot's many contributions included the creation of the vintage Champagne, the first known blended rosé champagne made by blending still red and white champagne wines, and the critical step in the creation of clear, bubbly Champagne, remuage or riddling to remove the dead yeast and other fermentation debris from the bubbly wine.
At this time, Champagne, while bubbly and clear, was very sweet and was something that people drank at the end of the meal.
Our next leap in the creation of bubbly Champagne is the contribution of Jeanne Alexandrine Louise Mélin Pommery, born on April 13, 1819. Her story is similar to Barbe-Nicole Ponsardin's, but instead of being 28 when she was widowed, Madame Pommery was 40 years old and had a 2 year old child. Upon her husband Alexandre's death in 1860, Madame Pommery assumed full control of the Pommery business.¹
When Madame Pommery took over the Pommery business, Champagne was not the primary focus of the business. While Pommery was also in the winemaking business, they were making red wine and not sparkling Champagne. Madame Pommery sold off the wool trading portion of the business and so impressed her husband's business partner, Narcisse Greno with her business acumen that he ceded the business over to her.² Imagine yourself back in the mid 1800's, this might be the scene that you would encounter in Madame Pommery's cellar.³

Madame Pommery presided over the expansion of the vineyard and winery operations throughout the Franco-Prussian War. One of the things that Madame Pommery put off while the war raged, was her experiments to make a dry Champagne.
Here is how this story goes. As early as 1848, an English merchant named Burnes tried to convince sweet Champagne makers to make their product in a dry style. This would be quite the gamble because:²

• Dry Champagne was more expensive and difficult to make
• Better, riper grapes needed to be used
• Dry Champagne required an aging time of 3 years instead of 1
• Most people knew Champagne to be sweet and liked it that way

In 1874, a vintage heralded as the best in the century, Madame Pommery tried something a little different. Instructing her head winemaker to create "a Champagne that is lighter, fruity, elegant". The result, with a dosage of just a few g/L, was a dry Champagne, in the brut style. The British went crazy for it, and the rest is history.
Reference:
1. Wikipedia, Louise Pommery.
2. Don and Petie Kladstrup, Champagne How the World's Most Glamorous Wine Triumphed Over War and Hard Times, HarperCollins, 2005, pg. 99-119.
3. Henry Vizetelly, CHAMPAGNE: with Notes on the Other Sparkling Wines of France, 1882, pg. 192.

Champagne Part 3: History - When Champagne Became Bubbly (the Contributions of the Veuve Clicquot)

In Champagne Part 3: History - When Champagne Became Bubbly (the Contributions of Dom Pérignon), we left Champagne in a state of being a 'still wine', at the time of Dom Pérignon's death in 1715. However, Dom Pérignon's immense contributions to the making of quality wine set the stage for the rise of sparkling Champagne.
Twenty years later, in 1735, the First Art Featuring Champagne, called Le Déjeunier d'Huitres or The Oyster Lunch was painted by Jean-Francois de Troy at the request of King Louis XV. The painting showed that the sparking Champagne was in bottles stoppered by a cork tied with string. The Champagne at this time had a significant amount of sediment and had to be drunk in one gulp.
Champagne during this time albeit sparkling, was very sweet, often containing 200 grams of residual sugar, which is much more than today's sauternes such as Chateau d'Yquem. Champagne was typically drunk at dinner, at the end of the meal. There was a market for this style of Champagne, especially in Russia.¹
Skipping forward in time some 42 years brings us to the birth of Barbe-Nicole Ponsardin in 1777, born to Marie Jean Josèphe Clémentine (Jeanne Josephe Marie-Clementine Letertre Huart) and Ponce Jean Nicolas Ponsardin. Ponce Jean Nicolas Ponsardin was a wealthy textile owner in the town of Reims.
In 1798, when she was 21 years old, Barbe-Nicole married François Clicquot, the only son of Philippe and Catherine Françoise Clicquot, thereby consolidating the two huge textile manufacturing houses in Reims of Ponsardin and Clicquot. ²
François' father, Philippe Clicquot, owned vineyards in Bouzy and Verzenay. In order to obtain the maximum profit from those vineyards, Philippe Clicquot founded the Clicquot maison de vins de Champagne in 1772. After his marriage to Barbe-Nicole Ponsardin, François, became his father's partner and took on the production of sparkling wine.³
Here is something I did not know: Nicole-Barbe Ponsardin was named after her maternal grandmother, Marie-Barbe-Nicole-Huarte Le Tertre, the daughter of Nicholas Ruinart, the nephew of Dom Thierry Ruinart, the friend of Dom Pierre Pérignon.^1,4 So, she had Champagne making in her blood!
It appears that both Nicole-Barbe and François embraced their new enological adventures until François died in 1805 leaving Nicole-Barbe, a widow, a Veuve. Nicole-Barbe appealed to her father-in-law for the finances to continue the Champagne venture that she had undertaken with François. Nicole-Barbe had to make two such monetary appeals before the tide began to turn to profitability.

In 1818, the big leap forward in making sparkling Champagne that is attributed to the Veuve Clicquot and her employee, a man named Müller, was the invention of riddling.
Prior to this invention, sparkling Champagne came with the deposits that remained in the bottle after fermentation was over, leaving the sparkling wine cloudy. Initially, decanting of the sparkling wine into another bottle was practiced, but with limited success in retaining the bubbles and with a lot of waste of wine. Sparkling wine was also kept in bottles on their sides, leaving the deposits to collect on the sides of the bottle.
The revolution in retrospect sounds very simple. Instead of leaving the bottle on it's side, the idea was to put the bottle sur pointe or upright on their necks. These bottles where put into a "table" where holes for the bottles were obliquely cut so that the bottles could be gradually turned at varying angles. The act of riddling was to get all of the dead yeast and lees to the neck of the bottle and once this was accomplished, to get the plug of deposit out of the bottle without risking injury to the bubbles. This invention lead to Champagne being free of the deposits of fermentation, leaving it clear and bubbly!
In a short period of time, the Veuve Clicquot's Champagne became renown throughout the Muscovite Empire, where they called it Klikoskaya. The fortune of the Ponsardin-Cliquot house was made. Madame Clicquot, amassed enormous wealth. One of the paintings that we have of the Veuve Clicquot is this one painted by Léon Cogniet.⁵

The painting shows a portrait of Madame Clicquot and her great-granddaughter Anne de Mortemart-Rochechouart, the future Duchesse d'Uzès. The Château de Boursault is in the background. The Château de Boursault is a neo-Renaissance château in Marne, France, built between 1843 and 1850 by Madame Clicquot Ponsardin.
There is so much to know about the Veuve Cliquot and if you are interested in reading an excellently researched biography of the Grande Dame, you must read Tilar J. Mazzeo's The Widow Clicquot.
Referene:
1. Tilar J. Mazzeo, The Widow Clicquot, HarperCollins Publishers, 2008.
2. Natasha Geiling, The Widow Who Created the Champagne Industry, Smithsonian.com, November 13, 2015.
3. Henry Vizetelly, CHAMPAGNE: with Notes on the Other Sparkling Wines of France, 1882, pg. 173.
4. Tilar J. Mazzeo, The Widow Clicquot, HarperCollins Publishers, 2008, pg. 16 and Barbe Nicole RUINART de BRIMONT Family Tree.
5. Painting of the Veuve Cliquot in the public domain.

Vintage 2019: March Snowfall

I was beginning to think that we might escape winter without a major snowfall, but this morning, we opened our eyes to the wettest snowfall this year. Last year, my husband and I were thinking about doing vineyard chores in February because the weather was so nice, but then Mother Nature "blessed" us with A Month of Storms.
So, I'm wondering if this March will be like last year's when we had a major snowfall every week!
This always reminds me of the old adage: "Comes in like a lion, goes out like a lamb."
I searched on the Internet again, and found a site that explains where the saying might have come from.¹
According to The Paris Review: "One of the earliest citations is in one Thomas Fuller’s 1732 compendium, Gnomologia: Adagies and Proverbs; Wise Sentences and Witty Sayings, Ancient and Modern, Foreign and British.
The authors give the wording as 'Comes in like a Lion, goes out like a Lamb.'"
The Guardian points out that it might also have a connection to the stars: One idea which has recently gained currency is that the saying refers to the stars. At the start of March, the constellation Leo (the Lion) is on the eastern horizon at sunset. By the end of the month, Aries (the Ram) is on the western horizon."
I suppose I prefer that to the opposite: Comes in like a lamb and goes out like a lion.
Reference:
1. Anthony Wright, Where Did the Phrase in Like a Lamb Out Like a Lion Come From?, March 1, 2018.