5. The blending or the quest for supreme harmony

«The conscientious musician must serve the wine from Champagne as if composing a comic-opera. Here he will discover the necessary sparkling joy and lightness.»

 Ch. Baudelaire, Paradis artificiels, « Le Vin », 1860.
 

   The Champagnes Houses buy their grapes from the principal great growths of A.O.C. Champagne: Montagne de Reims, Vallée de la Marne, Côte des Blancs, Côte des Bar…

     The owner takes special and attentive care of his grapes in order to obtain a quality wine. The Champagne House specialists aim to unite all of these various qualities into a perfect harmony to achieve an enriched blend with all the characteristics necessary to maintain a consistent brand taste from one year to the next. In this way, the cellar master acts as the guardian of the durability and the personality of the Houses' wines.

     An orchestra's conductor balances the high and low pitches, the pauses and re-entries to create a coherent and harmonious choir. In the same way, the cellar master and his oenologists blend different wines from different growths, grape-varieties and years to rediscover, year after year, the taste that gave their House its reputation. The only score that the cellar master and his oenologists have to ensure this is their skill and their winemaking knowledge. Only their experience and their palate can guide their choices in their quest for excellence.

As early as January, the cellar master and oenologists from each Champagne House carefully taste the wines coming from the different vineyards in the Champagne region. Just like a musician, they try out various combinations to produce the most perfect harmony, giving quality to their House's wine. The production of this blend uses the specific Champagne Method. In order to succeed, the Champagne cellar masters and oenologists show such skill and experience in tasting that they can even predict the effect of future ageing on the blend of wine.

Just like a conductor who works by ear, the cellar master undertakes the crafts of tasting and analysis, which depend largely on his sensory abilities. The wines vary with each harvest and thus his ability to taste and smell the different growths guides him year after year. Rediscovering flavours to get a very precise idea of the proportions that will give the perfect combination of taste and perfume. First of all, he blends wines from the same growths or neighbouring growths to obtain a homogeneous blend. Next he proceeds with the blend using such proportions that the delicacy, the nervousness, the vinosity and the aromas are optimal. These 'unions' are repeated several times after trials, tastings and comparisons. The blending processes take place in enormous tuns or vats equipped with mixers, which ensure the desired irreproachable homogeneity.

Portraits of the Great Trade of Head of cellars

     The cellar master is a true artist of both harmony and detail and must finish with a wine possessing three characteristics in the mouth: the acidity, the fullness and the length. These three qualities are the result of an alliance of wines with their own specificities.

Blending

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B) "Strength through union"

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     This expression finds its full sense in the production of Champagne. It is the union of the specificities of each growth, which will form the blend's strength of character. It is, indeed, for this reason that Champagne is so rich in flavours and requires so many adjectives when you try to describe it:

"I expected something alert, insolent, but joyful, courageous and lively, something like the sparkle of Champagne."
A. de Musset, Confessions d'un enfant du siècle, 1836.

     The three grape-varieties used to produce Champagne all play a part, reminding us of the soloist in our orchestra, a crucial role bringing the unique characteristics of Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Meunier.

     It is the harmonious and delicate symbiosis of all these characteristics, which gives birth to a unique wine. The synergy of the aromas will be revealed after bottling and "the capture of the sparkle" in a vacuum. The blending of these specificities creates a choir with melodious and intoxicating accents.

     The cellar master frequently completes the bottling blend with a certain proportion of older wine or "vins de réserve" (reserved wines). This makes the blend mellower, improves the maturation of a still young wine, ensures a constant House taste and brings certain complementary elements lacking in the wines of the current year.

     These wines, filtered and stored in tuns or vats sheltered from air contact, come from previous harvests. This, therefore, creates a wine "without a year" or "non-vintanged", which will take at least fifteen months to blossom in the bottle. This is the minimum length of time required by AOC regulations between the bottling and the disgorgement.

If, on the other hand, a particular year's harvest has exceptional characteristics or qualities, the blend is created with wines from this year alone. This wine is said to be 'vintaged' and the year or 'vintage' is written on both the label and the cork. In this case, AOC regulations require a minimum of three years ageing between the bottling and the disgorgement. A vintage is characterised by its powerful personality. It is therefore understandable that it is more difficult to make comparisons between them, unlike blends "without a year" which guarantee a constant taste.

     Champagnes produced exclusively from white grapes exist as well. They are known as "blanc de blancs" and are considered to be particularly fine, elegant and light. They are produced uniquely from the Chardonnay grape-variety. They are made up of grapes either from the same year or from different years depending whether they are vintaged or not, and from one or several growths depending whether they are 'monocru' (single growth) or not. The origin of the grapes also has an important influence. The Chardonnay varies from fine to structured depending whether they come from the eastern side of the Montagne de Reims, the Côte des Blancs, the Sézannais or the Aube. One can detect aromas of dried fruit, white or citrus fruit or even flowers.

     Rosé Champagne, which is often vintaged, can be made by two methods:

      - by adding red wine from Champagne to the blend or
      - by macerating the black grape berries in the must until the desired colour is obtained.

     Vintaged or not, the 'spéciales' cuvées, also called 'de prestige', represent the top of the range of a particular brand. They can be distinguished by their quality, which is due to the choice of grape-varieties, growth and the length of ageing. They have prestigious and evocative names (Cristal, Dom Pérignon, Grand Siècle, Comtes de Champagne, etc.) and their bottles can be quite unique (Célébris, Spécial Club, Taittinger Collection, Belle Epoque, etc.).

     This blending phase remains the focal point of the Champagne tradition and guarantees, through time, the durability of tastes and flavours of wines from the Champagne Houses.

  C) Cold stabilisation

     This ultimate process finishes the first phase of vinification and aims to chill the recently blended cuvées, in order to obtain a perfect limpidity and stability for the future wine.

     The quality of the cold stabilisation by tartaric precipitation is particularly important for the production of sparkling wine from Champagne. The increase in the degree of alcohol during the capture of the sparkle reduces the solubility of the potassium bitartrate and encourages the precipitation in the bottles. The latter, if important, will create sheets, which will later hamper the 'riddling', and can give rise to important losses during the disgorgement encouraging an excessive degassing. Finally, every time the temperature descends below a level called the 'spontaneous crystallisation temperature' (between - 3 and - 5° C.), which can happen during transportation in very cold weather or prolonged periods in a fridge, the wine is subject to thermal shocks, which can cause natural but undesirable crystals.

     There are different types of stabilisation for obtaining a high level of stability and preventing these risks:

. Prolonged wine stabilisation at a temperature near to freezing point

     This must be carried out on a clarified wine, improved by the inoculation of finely ground tartar crystals, which speed up the process of crystallisation. It takes place in four phases:

     - First of all, it consists of lowering the temperature of the wine to its freezing point, via refrigeration and a temperature exchanger.

     - The wine is then kept at a low temperature, in isothermal vats, for six to eight days.

     - Then, sheet filtration takes place at the exit of the vats, at a minimum temperature in order to avoid a new dissolution of the potassium bitartrate crystals.

     - After this filtration, the stabilised wine is reheated (with a new wine yet to be treated) via a passage through a temperature exchanger. There is, therefore, a ‘calories-frigories’ exchange between the two wines

.Contact stabilisation

     Rapid - it combines the effect of the cold with crystalline germs, by maintaining the 'tartar-wine' contact for one to four hours with constant stirring. It does not require minus temperatures.

. Continuous stabilisation caused by the cold and contact with crystalline germs and carried out in continuously functioning apparatus.

     The wine, placed in a stabilisation vat, is taken to near its freezing point and is subject to continuous stirring and contact with its own potassium bitartrate crystals for about ten minutes. Then it is filtered and sent to a temperature exchanger. In certain machines, if the wine is taken below its freezing point, the ice will accelerate the crystallisation process.

     Although each of these methods gives satisfactory results, the cellar master must always ensure that the wine is well clarified and that the cold is controlled at the desired temperature for the necessary time period. The results obtained must be verified to avoid any modification such as oxidation, degassing or precipitation of colouring substances.

     After these treatments, the wine is perfectly limpid and stable from a biological point of view. It is known as 'vin clair' (clear wine). The wine-maker carries out a new racking and then lets the wine rest in the cellar at 10° C. until spring. We have now reached the end of the first cycle of vinification.ion.

      The natural fermentation has changed the sugary grape juice into a dry wine, deprived of fermentable sugar, which now has three months to live. It has been clarified and racked and displays an attractive golden yellow colour. Each blended bottle now awaits its second natural fermentation cycle. This is voluntarily started in a vacuum: the Champagne bottle.