Early November 2018
We come out of the winery of our friend Paul, winegrower at Le Mesnil sur Oger.
A few samples of the still wine already show me – thanks to Paul’s explanations, his pipette in hand – the differences between the grapes from several plots. The harvest, which was early this year, was completed 2 months ago. The harvesting and pressing equipment, cleaned, maintained, stored… is ready for the 2019 harvest.
As soon as it was pressed, the juice, after settling *, became must **. Fermentation went well, thermoregulation *** barely necessary as the autumn was sunny. We are walking through his vines, there is (almost) nothing to do there at the moment. Paul walks them for the pleasure of seeing them “fire” **** day after day. The absence of rain extends the extraordinary palette of flamboyant colours of the plant habit until the first frosts that will be fatal to it.
Early March 2019
Since January, Paul and his team have been working on the blends, the cornerstone of good champagne. Regular tasting of clear wine has allowed him to find the right proportions of juice from the 37 different plots on the estate to make the different wines of his 2018 vintage. In the vineyard, compared to the explosion of autumn colours, the winter landscape seems “extinct” to the point of revealing above all the immense lattices of the trellising wires; true works of Land Art.
