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| A
vineyard next to Mareuil that will be planted. New stakes and the first
set of wires are already there. The wires are lifted up during the
growing season |
Visiting
the steep hill of Clos des Goisses, the single vineyard champagne from
Philipponnat |
Vines
ready to be pruned |
Some
grapes are still on the vine in November. This can be because the
pickers missed the bunch or (more likely this year - 2003) that the
bunch was not ripe at the time of the harvest |
Cordon
Royat trained vines. The top pair of wires are fixed. The lower pair of
wires (almost on the ground now) are raised when the vine starts growing
branches. On the middle wire you tie up the "permanent" branch (the one
that is not cut when pruning) of the vine |
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| A
capsule for 'confusion sexuelle', to fight unwanted insects without
chemical insecticides |
Not yet
pruned |
You can
see the cliff in the distance showing the white chalk soil |
More
Pinot Noir left on the vine. Nice and sweet now |
Roses in
the vineyard. Behind, you can see the vines that have been completely
pruned for next year - only the single branch left |
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| A good
illustration of Cordon Royat pruning: one horizontal branch (permanent),
tied up along a wire, and several vertical branches carrying leaves and
grapes. The vertical branches will all be removed in the pruning |
Looking
at the deposit made during the second fermentation in bottle. You can
see the cloudy wine towards the neck |
Bottles
undergoing manual 'rémuage' in 'pupitres' with natural cork stoppers. It
is unusual to do manual rémuage and it is unusual to use natural cork at
this stage. Usually giropalettes and crown corks are used. But this is
Philipponnat's cuvée prestige... |
Crown cork used in this case. Thanks to the clear bottle (for the blanc
de blancs) you can clearly see the deposit accumulated on the cork. This
will be removed by the 'dégorgement' (see below) |
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| Rosé |
The
remaining stock of 1983 vintage champagne in magnums (soon to be one
less) |
Trying
the 'standard' Philipponnat |
Charles
Philipponnat talking about his champagne |
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A tool
used for....?
(A: dégorgement) |
Getting
ready for the dégorgement |
1. Make
sure you keep the bottle cork facing down and don't shake it |
2. Take
a solid grip with the left hand |
2.5 Take
a deep breath |
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| 3.
Position the "bottle opener" on the crown cap |
4. Raise
the bottle slowly |
5. Pull
the cork when the bottle is half way up. Not too late (the lees will
have been mixed with the wine), and not too early (you'll loose all the
wine) |
6. The
lees from the second fermentation in bottle are sprayed all over the
flower bed (if you point the bottle to that) together with a little bit
of wine |
7. Put
your thumb on the bottle neck to stop the champagne pouring out |
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| Looks
simple? Try yourself to open a bottle of champagne upside-down without
loosing all the wine... |
Just a
little bit of wine lost |
The very
special taste of recently disgorged (can not be more recent than that!)
and absolutely zero 'dosage' (addition of sugar with the 'liqueur
d'expédition') |
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