My Harvest Time In Champagne Vineyards

The sky was a glorious cerulean blue with nary a cloud in view for the Champagne harvest as I crouched in the hot sun trying to snip off a cluster of blue grapes without cutting my fingers!

I was as proud as can be of filling up my basket with those hard to get to grapes, that seem to prefer growing at the bottom rather than the top of the vines.

I have always wanted to go to the “vendages” or grape harvest in the vineyards. What a memorable feast it was to be smack in the vines of Champagne with wonderful passionate vintners sipping delicious Champagne bubbly!

I have a new found appreciation first hand of all the back-breaking work that goes into making Champagne, the nec plus ultra of sparkling wines.

From the grape pickers and handlers to the vigilant vintners supervising each step and often pitching in any task needed.

The whole orchestrated dance, driven by their passionate display of talents and commitment to producing the finest Champagne they could make!

I had mentioned to Aimée that I wanted to go, and she had the good luck in choosing a marvelous family of Champagne vinters that went out of their way to offer a delightful afternoon in the vines and pressing room.

As a therapist, I am as interested in the people making the wine as the wine itself.

I tune in naturally to other people’s energy and am quick to sense their devotion and emotional involvement in their wines.

Passionate, kind and generous vintners transmit their benevolent energy to their wines and those are the wines that I prefer to drink!

Christine and Vincent Piot Sevillano are exactly those type of winemakers I love discovering!

Lovely Christine, seen between Aimée and I, is as exuberant and bubbly as the marvelous champagne she makes. It is no wonder that all of her expertise and enthusiasm is transmitted into her bottles!

If you have read my blog posts in the past about vinters, you already know that I prefer to buy my wines from independent vintners.

They are winemakers who grow their own grapes and vinify their own wines on their domains and are in charge of marketing them as well.

You can identify their wines by looking at the top cap where you will the word Recoltant, and generally, there will be a small logo of Vigneron Independent on the label too.

Piot Sévellano family goes back 10 generations and is now one of the leading innovative Champagne producers committed to environmental protection as well as quality in the flute.

Daughter Christine and her husband Vincent have now taken over the whole affair. Vincent, seen in the photo below,  was supervising the wine pressing along with Christine’s father.

Christine and their two adorable children were out in the vines with the grape pickers.

Her 10-year-old son was going over the grapes and tossing out any unmatured green ones he saw.

Christine explained the importance of picking only fully mature blue red grapes that are healthy and free of any mold.

She does not use any pesticides, nor herbicides only uses organic fertilizers. Her Champagnes are have been awarded the High Environmental Value certificate.

Getting there was easy as it is only an hour and a half drive from Paris to the Champagne department.

On the Route de Champagne, you often find yourself behind a tractor hauling the freshly picked grapes to be pressed, hence the warning!

Stephanie, seen to the left of me, the proprietor’s enthusiastic assistant greeted us very warmly at the door of the house in the pretty flower bedecked village of Vincelles.

Stephanie was full of knowledge, having grown up in the area as she recounted the history of the family and was extremely knowledgeable in all the steps and process of champagne making.

At the grape pressing room, I was fascinated by the huge pressing machine, that, of course, was once done by human feet then onto grinding stones.

It was my first time to witness grapes being pressed, releasing all of their precious juice needed to be turned into wine.

Baskets bulging full of glistening light green chardonnay grapes were awaiting their turn.

Christine’s father was driving the tractor that loaded the grape baskets up for handlers to empty into the pressoir.

The handlers work is arduous and dangerous lifting such heavy baskets of grapes to pour in.

Stephanie explained that they generally wear harnesses to keep them from accidentally falling in!

The cylinder-shaped pressing machine was quite noisy and the grape juice flowing out was forming a sweet tasting foam.

The grapes are pressed several times to remove all juice and gustative qualities, which each juice is put into separated tanks.

The resulting grape residue is shipped off to make Marc de Champagne and also to make cosmetics and oils.

Pinot Meunier, a red grape was still clinging to the vines in the process of being picked.

Champagne is traditionally made from three grapes varieties. The Pinot Meunier, Chardonnay and Pinot Noir grapes.

Only wine made from grapes grown in the geographical area of Champagnes can be labeled Champagne!

The Champagne AOC allows the winemakers to choose the percentages of each grape variety they want and will allow them to make some Champagnes from only one grape.

Each grape juice is fermented separately into still wine in these huge tanks.  The Champagne producer then assembles the various still wines together accordingly to his taste.

After a  very small addition of sweetened yeast, the wine is laid to rest to undergo a second fermentation.

It is this second fermentation that forms the fabulous bubbles in the bottle that makes Champagne unique!

The sediment that occurs during this second fermentation process is removed from the top of the bottle and the wine is recorked.

After a long period of aging in the bottle, Champagne is ready to be sold and enjoyed!

Fortunately for me, they had low expectations for visiting “pickers” and I could render my cutters after about an hour!

At least I tried to be diligently inspecting my grape clusters for maturity and free of mold, and I hope that I didn’t miss any clusters on my row.

Honestly, don’t think I could pick grapes for 8 hours a day, as it is really back breaking work, hot and sticky, and I got a head full of cockleburrs that Aimee had to painstakingly remove from my hair!

Stephanie had brought some water to wash our grape sticky hands and to quench our thirst in the hot sun.

Christine’s father said this has been the hottest summer and the earliest harvest date allowed that he could recall.

Usually, because a lack of necessary sunshine and warmth, the Champagne grapes do not reach full maturity and sweetness till late September or October.

The special treat of the day was sipping the three delicious Champagnes offered for our “hard work”.

The wonderful house Brut Tradition, the lovely  Brut rosé, and the superb Brut Premium were all charming and full of complexity and expression of fruit.

Before we left, Christine gifted us with a bag full of the freshly picked Pinot Meunier grapes, which I found so touching and generous of her!

We left with two bottles to carry home and would have bought more if my budget allowed, but I will be back!

The bed and breakfast La Ferme du Temple had an extraordinary history of being a former Commanderie and Chapelle of the Templiers!

Our room was next to the Chapel in ruins, that is slowly being restored to its glory.

Notice the unusual circular engraving on the wall that reminded me of a labyrinth!

It turned out to be the most laid backed check-in that I have ever experienced as well!

The little welcome room door was locked and fortunately, a Brittish couple we saw, who had stayed there before said when the owner is not there, to just choose what room they want.

Reaching the owners by telephone, we were instructed to do the same! There was a refrigerator full of champagne to buy if wanted and sip outside or beside the pond overlooking the fields in the back.

I skipped that as I planned on having some more Champagne with dinner that night.

The wonderful breakfast besides croissant and a baguette, of course, was some homemade yogurt,  creme brulée, and the popular but strong flavoured Maroilles cheese, a regional favourite.

Back home I made a succulent deep-dish cobbler with those delicious sweet grapes, seeds and all, bursting with flavour, using only a mere smidgen of sugar, as they barely needed any!

I named it after Christine because if it had not been for her, I would have never been able to procure such freshly picked Pinot Meunier grapes!