Les champenois ont eu l'honneur d'accueillir le congrès des rencontres des vignerons indépendants de france cette semaine du 10 au 12 avril, sur le thème de l'export. de belles perspectives pour les vins francais sur les marchés export....pour ceux et celles qui savent s'imposer et saisir des opportunités tout en déjouant quelques pièges....

"arrivés à troyes par l'express de paris ils attendent généralement un second train pour joindre enfin la gare de polisot où, le cheval "coco", fluteau le cousin, clément et son fils viendront les attendre tous les débuts juillet" ever since i read this excerpt from the book "renoir à essoyes" by fabienne dubois, which describes how "cousin

Just finished harvesting and we're super happy with the result : great grapes, ripe and excellent quality. can't wait to see how the wines turn out ! i was recently asked why we do all the grape picking by hand in champagne. first of all, you need to be aware that champagne is an "appellation controlée" which means that all producers must adhere t

Nature never lets us forget that so much of our livelihood depends on her whims! winter and spring in france have been unusually cold, gray and wet this year. we breathed a sigh of relief last weekend and congratulated ourselves for getting through the period called "saints de glace" without any spring frosts....... and now we have the above weathe

Yes, i'll admit, i'm green with envy that george clooney chose another champagne for his wedding ! i will concede that if he had to choose something other than champagne fluteau, he at least went with another vigneron indépendant (owner-grower). the story is quite amazing and there are some similitudes with ourselves. this wine grower, whose viney

During our 2010 bottling, i encouraged thierry to start producing in 3 liter bottles, called "jéroboam", the equivalent of four normal sized bottles. we'd never ventured into larger formats, because for one thing, absolutely all the work has to be done manually, from bottling to labeling, not to mention the turning ("remuage"), disgorging and cork

Best wishes for a very happy new year full of fun and surprises and lots of champagne! one of my resolutions for 2014 is to write more on this blog.........and after receiving a message from an english speaking customer, i've found my first subject ! here is the text i received from elisabeth : " we are drinking fluteau and wondering what earl mean

Terrible start to the season - three nights of below 0° temps, and one more predicted for the day after tomorrow. ever wonder why champagne is so expensive? because it's very difficult to grow grapes in this climate, though the resulting champagne can be awesome if we manage to bypass all the risks involved : late spring frost; coulure" (loss of f

"ouf" ! (that's a sigh of relief in french). i'm so glad we've finished harvesting as of october 5th. the indian summer days of september have given way to clouds, rain and cold and i pity the workers who are still out there picking grapes. this was a very unusual season for us. the cold wet spring weather that lasted until the end of june really s

Nous sommes actuellement au salon des vins à oyannax dans l'ain ou les visiteurs se font rares......comme preuve, voici des photos prises à 15h samedi montrant les allées vides. pendant qu'on est coincé ici, un grand soleil brille généreusement dehors et les clients onts sûrement décidé d'en profiter après ce long hiver........on ne peut