Champagne is a separate country. There are all different.

The yield per hectare is a major factor in winemaking. Among wine lovers there is a widespread, but perhaps naive belief that high productivity is bad and low is good. The idea is that the fewer berries you harvested per hectare, the more concentrated they taste – and that’s a definite plus for any wine. But if you look, things are not so simple.

Most of the really good vintages of Bordeaux and Burgundy in practice accompanied with good yields. What, in General, not surprisingly: good weather brings a lot of ripe berries. And don’t forget about the stocking density: number of plants per hectare has a serious impact on the gross yield. If you have 10,000 vines per hectare, the harvest you will collect significantly more than with 5,000 vines.

The age of the vines is also a serious factor. Older vines give rise to a more concentrated berries, but that’s because of the juice in them is less.
And there is no escape from such unpleasant things as disease, bad weather, frosts, and in some “lucky” regions and forest fires, floods and volcanic eruptions.

Champagne (or rather, to grape juice from which it is produced), the optimal yield is higher than for normal (quiet) wines.

Not too fertile soil of the champagne region led to the practice rather dense plantings: approximately 8000 vines per hectare. The tendency towards greater increases.

Champagne winemakers explain: a must for champagne should have a more relaxed (neutral) flavor compared to the quiet wines, in which the goal is a rich fruity bouquet. So appreciate the complexity of champagne is acquired during aging in the cellar of a mixture of very mineral wines, not fruit “treats”.

And yet, if you look at the set for champagne by law, the maximum output level per hectare (15.5 tonnes), it becomes obvious that, for still wines, this rate would be incredibly high. For example, to Bordeaux, the legislative maximum is twice lower.

Key moment No. 1

Every year a special body Comite Champagne sets the basic maximum yield per hectare specifically for this year. This is the maximum amount of grapes that can be harvested and immediately processed into wine materials for champagne. Set it as late as possible – usually in July. And this level is always lower than the EU absolute maximum 15.5 tons per hectare.

This basic maximum – subject to the conflict of interests of tenants owning most of the vineyards and champagne houses who are forced to buy the most expensive grapes in the world. It is obvious that in any year the farmer wants to harvest and sell as many grapes, and the manufacturer is interested to buy as much as it needs and no more.

Due to the economic crisis, this annual limit has caused heated political debate. 2010 for a more objective assessment was introduced the practice of statistical observation – ‘observatoire economique’. Target yield level was determined on the basis of cross-analysis of sales over the last 12 months, the level of stocks of reserve wines and bottles aging in the cellars, as well as forecasts of future sales.

Why such hard binding the harvest in champagne to economic, market highs? Champagne is not unique in this: in the region of the Port, and sherry is doing exactly the same.

Champagne is aged in the cellar of the producer an average of 2-4 years before they go on sale. What is collected and bottled in year X, does not reach the market earlier than in year X+3. The definition of supply to meet demand in 3 years is to harmonize the level of current production and expected future demand and the expenditure of reserves from previous years. That’s why this year’s harvest should be based on a clear view of how much wine will be sold in the next three years.

Champagne is a commodity price elastic. In difficult times, the demand for it falls. Adjustment of production volumes to the level of demand actually requires the ability to predict the economic cycle.

Comité Champagne published levels for harvest 2014, set July 16: 10.5 tons per hectare. The average level for the period 2001-2010 amounted to 12285кгha, with a base high in 2013 at the level of 10000kg / ha. Careful growth to the level of the previous year can be regarded as a reflection of the slow recovery of the global economy, given the continuing stagnation of his native champagne market French.

But the level of 10.5 tons / ha is the maximum base level of production. It can be exceeded by producers on the value of the so-called upper limit (rendement butoir). The difference between the baseline and the upper limit is the grapes going into the Reserve, assigned to the name of the husbandman who sell the harvest of the great champagne house (or cooperative), or deposited by the husbandman if he is a champagne producer.

Such a provision, the rules of which change all the time, practiced in the champagne region for many years. This buffer allows you to smooth out the lack or excess of wine materials in the Northern region, affected by climate risks and with very irregular yields from year to year.

This reserve is the stock of reserve wines from previous vintages to produce annual blending, allowing to obtain traditional and appreciate the complexity of the sparkling blends.

The balance of 2014

In short, the numbers Comite Champagne for 2014:

• The base limit production 10500 kgha for immediate production of champagne
• Of these, 400 kgha of current inventory Reserve. (500 if sale of 2014 will exceed 307 million bottles). I.e. in the end you can only harvest 10100 kg per hectare to start the current production of champagne.
• The upper limit of the output (butoir) – more 3100kg to the base (i.e., only 13200 kgha), which, if collected, should be required to go to Reserve. However, the overall Reserve level should not exceed 8000kg per hectare.

So if my crop amounted to 12,000 kg / ha, 400 kg of these 12000 will go directly to the base wine and be counted as vins clairs (the base wine) from my Reserve. Remains 11600кгha. But it is 1100 kg / ha more than the basic maximum (10500 kgha), so they have to go to my Reserve. In my Reserve left 5000kg / ha after was used referred to 400kg / ha. So that I can bench more 1100kg / ha, bringing it to the level 6100кгha, which will not exceed the established reserve limit of 8000kg / ha.

In practice, of course, grapes in the Reserve is stored in the base wine (vin clair), until, until will be used in future blends according to the limits issued by the Comite Champagne.

So, the volume of production in champagne is a tricky business, and it can be confusing.
But we will continue.

The question may arise: why is champagne the yield per hectare is measured by the weight of the grapes, not the quantity of the resulting wine?

The fact that the champagne until recently was the only wine region in the world where the product yield was controlled twice, once by the weight of grapes, the second – the amount of juice and the type as extraction. Now this practice has also been applied in Italy in the production of sparkling Franciacorta.

Key point No. 2

The product yield in champagne is only partially determined by the crop. The next stage of control – in press.

A must for champagne should give a wine with a very delicate structure. High acidity and sparkling “mousse” are two sides of this quality. To the perfect creamy mousse champagne will then seek, aging in the cellar on the lees from the second fermentation at the perfect 10-14 degrees. But first, you must take care to preserve fresh acidity and enters from the pulp of the berries as little as possible of microscopic particles.

Champagne grapes do not ripen as much as the grapes the more southern regions, so that from its skin and pulp during pressing the juice get astringent compounds, if not to do the spin really nicely.

Therefore, the amount of juice that can be pressed from fresh berries is the second most important point in the control of yield in the production of champagne. The rule is very simple: no more than 102 litres of juice from 160 kg of grapes.

The standard volume champagne press – 4000 kg, i.e. 2550 allowed juice. The best part is the first 2050 l, which are called the Cuvee (cuvee), the rest – taille – is a blend of champagne lower level – not such a bright, faster-maturing (due to the greater amount of easily oxidizable compounds), with a more rough texture. If the manufacturer wishes to use for its champagne cuvee, taille that he can sell.

102 liters from 160 kg is output approximately at the level of 63,75% of the bunch weight in the form of juice. Champagne, derived from the actual allowed maximum for 2014 10100кгha (remember that 400 kg is considered from the reserves) in the form of the finished product will be approximately 67 hectoliters.

Total quantity in litres is always a little more calculated to 63.75% as a small amount will add chaptalization (adding sugar to increase the final fortress of wine), some crumbs, add the yeast and sugar entered for secondary fermentation, and finally play the role that the heavier the juice will be partly converted into lighter alcohol, due to what the liters would be a bit more than it was in the beginning of pounds.

In approximately the last 15 years, production in the champagne region, taking into account the above amendments amounted to an average of 65 to 75 hectoliters per hectare. And it’s not so bad for such a density. This indicator may well serve as an answer to those who believe that champagne is too big yields for the quality to which it aspires.

In fact, about the same as in Bordeaux.

Author: Tim Hall. Scala School of Wine /2014