Twice a week, some winegrowers put on their white coats and become true laboratory assistants. Since the beginning of August, the Matu network has been active to vine samples, to monitor its maturation. This will determine from what date do the pickers can start harvesting the grapes.
At the Moët house, in Verzenay, the seven winegrowers present took out the test tubes and the reactive liquids. Two are responsible for crushing the grapes, another for recovering the juice and putting a certain quantity in a tube, the fourth mixes it with a bluish liquid or weighs it with a must weigher and the last, in particular Jean Paul Morel, write down the numbers in its columns.
Each week, a certain number of bunches are blindly picked from about fifteen plots. The purpose of the levies is to collect the degree of sugar and acidity of each vine. An average will be made to achieve a predefined objective:
We are looking for 10.5. There is, for the moment, a correct progression. We were at 5 degrees 7 in black gable, Monday August 8, and we went to 6.6, Thursday August 11. That’s an increase of 1.1 in four days. – Jean Paul Morel, delegate of the Champagne wine-growing association.
Depending on the results, each village sends a curve of the evolution of sugar and acidity at the CVC, the wine-growing center of Champagne. It will be them who will determine the date of the harvest. Those whose grapes can be picked earlier, due to their sugar and acidity levels, will have to write a declaration based on their figures.
If the rise is constant, the AVC delegate then allows himself a small projection: the harvest could start on August 30.
– MASSON Marie-Amelie
2022, a good year for wine
All the lights were green for the grapes to grow well. A dry month of May until mid-June, thunderstorms which made it possible to water the flowers since the winegrowers are not allowed to water their vines, no disease… “We escaped everything for now ! rejoices the retired winemaker. If it was necessary to sign an ideal scenario from the beginning, everything was respected to the letter.”
The only fear for the winemaker is storms which should approach, as every year, in the middle of August. Either they will make it possible, once again, to give the missing 20 millimeters of watering, or either destroy the plots on the eve of the harvest. The winegrowers remember, even today, their historic losses in 2017…