Harvest 2024: The first organic Tange-Gérard champagnes on the way
This harvest we reached two big objectives. We have managed to fill up two big presses, one with our Meunier and one with our Chardonnay. We are always challenged by the size of the presses, that we have access to, you know. Well, now we expect to have two base wines to work with for our future organic champagnes. Equally very satisfying, our yields were eventually not that far from the potential of champagne bottles to be produced with our 3 hectares. Eventually, we lacked 2 tons per hectare out of 10. Our worst fears were 50%.
That’s pretty good in 2024. If you visited us this summer or follow our activities on social media, you may conclude, that our expectations were too negative? Well, we continue to think, that the challenges this season were not exagerated. We fought waves of dawny mildew since June, one after another and unstoppable because of continuous, abundant rain. Some plots gave just 4 tons out of the 10 needed. Others were luckily above the 10 tons due to rain in the days before the harvest that made the grapes put on weight. Then the sun delivered the sugars. The Chardonnays did the last part of maturation just days before we picked them. This combined with lots of work all summer to fight the disease and manage the grasses made the difference.
We picked the first grapes on Monday September 16th under the sun. Seven days later, Sunday lunch-time, the last cluster landed in the bucket. Two days after, massive rain was back in Champagne. Pretty fast, it was obvious that we had almost as many clusters to cut as in normal years despite the low yields. Our small team of the year would not make it in a week. Furthermore, we needed extra hands to fill up the big press a second time with exclusively our grapes. These extra hands were crucial to fill the big press, finish before the rain and on time. We thank you all, team, friends and kids.
During the grape harvest, time flows in a different way. We tend to live with the grapes as they develop more than with the calendar. This season of the grapes can be short or long. The harvest may take place in August, September or October: It will always be the preludium of autumn. The harvest time is the frame of its own micro world as well. We live together, share objectives more or less for one week. After we get back to our personal projects that we will explore together next year: education, new place to live, new job, retirement, loss. We are a group of people who travel between many different stations of life. Obviously, the idea of grape harvest is to pick and press the grapes, but we learn about other people and from them as well. We try to share the week of grapes as well as this other unique aspect with you when you visit us this special week.
The autumn: After the pressing, the must sediments before it is transferred to steel vats to fermentate. Good grapes make all the difference for the best result. Ours were small, some with unproblematic dry parts due to the downy mildew. Since the yields were low, they matured homogenously without botrytis. These are impor-tant parameters to make good base wine for our future organic champagnes. The musts are still fermentating. Later this autumn, half of each wine will age further in oak casks which will provide us two different base wines. We will taste these future four wines throughly and discuss how to proceed with them next year.
Wonderfully, our first potential buyers have manifested their interest. And we do hope that our future champagnes may be of interest for you as well? It is no easy task to grow organic grapes. Some years, yields may be lost. This year has cost us more than an average year because of more sprays of cupper and plant extracts. Furthermore, we needed to buy equipment for our caterpillar machine to be able to access very muddy fields. All these obstacles are now behind us, and we are immensely happy to be able to make the bottles we dreamt about. Hopefully, you will be around to taste them with us in some years?
In our shelves: In the meantime we are happy to tell you that Sollissandre Blancs has joined the singles team. It has partly been matured in oak casks. The wood brings an intensity to the champagne, that makes it an obvious partner with food should anything be left in the bottle. We continue to sell Solliphere in vintages 2017 and 2014 as well as Sollissime from 2015. The classic non vintages Tradition, Noirs & Blancs and the pink Rosé d’Assemblage as well as the Blanc de Blancs (2018) and Selection (2012) are all available with Tradition in a sweeter demisec version and a powerful Rosé de Saignée.
A glass of champagne is the perfect way to celebrate for 15 minutes or 15 hours, whatever your mood, your day, your schedule allow. All these champagnes may celebrate these special days. Or send any ordinary day to the skies with a whoosh and bubbles in your glass. We look forward to hearing from you.
Harvestgreetings from Alain Gérard & Solveig Tange, Soulières, September 29th 2024
