Computer lessons...

because our job is now not only being in the vineyard and in the cellar, i'm having a computer lesson...

From Australia

We have a very nice comment in The Australian :

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/its-cheers-to-the-independents/story-e6frg6n6-1226712114472

"I loved the fresh Golden Delicious-like fruity bite of the Henriet-Bazin Extra Brut"

Thank you to like our Champagne.

Legacy from the past.

I was looking for something else in the wharehouse and I finaly found those old "things". Thet were waitng for someone who take care of them. Thet are from the time of gran-father Robert Henrie, in the 30's.

A wood box for the harvest, two baskets and 2 boxes for the shippment of the champagne.

One of the woodbox was full of ashtrays, painted by hand.

Capsule for 2014

Every year we change the color. Please find, as a news, the colors of the capsule for 2014.

Drilling the soil.

For Champagne Henriet Bazin, the word "terroir" is not a nice work used as a good marketing argument in a brochure or a speach. It's a phylosphy, a reality, a way of living our life or grower for générations. It mean the passion and respect of our land, of our vines.

The 37 plots are going to be drilled, and the informations concerning the soil are gonna be used to match with the clear wine tastings of each plots to see if we can find some conclusion concerning the influence of soil and sub-soil on the wines.

This is a long and hard work to excave manualy 1.2m meters of soil, but we are sure that the results are going to be very interesting an dinformative. We will let you know.

Champagne & Sushi.

Taking advantage of the visit of our importer from Japan, Marie-Noëlle proposed to set up a tasting in order to detect the most beautiful matching beetween champagne and sushi.

You can easily imagine that it was not possible to offer sushi with mediocre quality to these specialist. Only the best. The challenge was not the champagne this time. To select the best Sushi, Marie-Noëlle had the invaluable assistance of Masako (our  contact in France for the Japanese market). As a first step, they have created a list of a dozen of Sushi to have samples for every tastes and every flavours.

After a first test "incognito" at a dinner at the restaurant, the realisation of the Sushi was entrusted to Jean-Pierre Guyard and his team (Sushi Shop in Reims) which has done a superb job, offering very nice and colorfull Suhi, but also very good, and in the delay. The story tell that our fine Japanese tasters, specialist in the matter says taht some of the French Sushi were better than the Japanese ones ! It is to say.

At the end of more than 2 hours of tasting, 9 cuvées of Champagne Henriet Bazin have shown attraction for some sushi, offering superb association, and gorgeous weddings.

The results are confidential for the moment, but we will tell you more very soon.

Selection of the buds.

The selection of the buds come approximatly 1 month after the opening of the buds. It is again a manual task that need to go in each vines, and to take care about each branch of each cep to remove some of the new shoots. With 9 000 vines per hectare for our estate which has 7.5. It's not less than 67 500 cep which will be shecked one by one.

But why do we have to remove future branches ?

To be fruitfull (bear fruit) shoots that grows this year must come from a but established on a branch of last year. If the new branch is a coming from one of 2 years or more, it will not carry grappes, but will consume the sap. It is therefore necessary to eliminate those new shoots to prevent it taking too much sap unnecessarily. So, we remove new shoots from the bottom of the cep or from buds of old branches.

Floral tasting.

Flowers have always been the second passion of Marie-Noëlle, after the champagne of course. But it is the endless waiting for the spring that gave her the desire to organize this floral tasting.

This amazing experience is to find flowers that make up the aromatic palette of four of our vintages. The idea was to select a range of a dozen of flowers and present each of them in glasses for tasting so that they can be isolated and independently smelt. Tasters have simply to smell each and others, and compare with the aromas of the flute of champagne to decide if, yes or not, the bouquet expresses by each flower can be found in the cuvée.

To avoid any "a priori" each bottle was label by a simple number, tasters couldn't so refer their knowledge to imagine the flowers. The resultat was that more objective.

Once the flowers have been selected, Severine Schopphoven, creative in floral art for the 2 "Eauxygene" Stores located in the heart of Champagne made a composition of each cuvée, a sort of floral reflection for our blends.

Our friends, around the table, where all agreed on the difficulty to carry out such an exercise, as rare and unusual. Some flowers, such as Lily, Lily of the Valey, Freesia express perfumes so powerful and heady  that we where obliged to open the windows to "change" the air.

The bouquets are :

Selection de Parcelles :
  50% Chardonnay from Villers-Marmery (1er Cru)
  50% Pinot Noir from Verzy et Verzenay (Grand Cru)
  70% harvest 2008 and 30% réserve wine from 1968 to 2007
Rose : 6 dégustateurs
Freesia : 5 d
Lilac : 4 d
Wallflower : 4 d
Violette : 3 d

Blanc de Noirs :
  100% Pinot Noir Verzy from Verzenay (Grand Cru)
  70% harvest 2008 and 30% réserve wine from 1968 to 2007
Lime tree: 8 dégustateurs
Rose : 6 d
Freesia : 4 d
Lily : 4 d
Peony : 4 d
Orchid : 4 d

Blanc de Blancs :
  100% Chardonnay from Villers-Marmery (1er Cru)
  70% harvest 2008 and 30% réserve wine from 1968 to 2007
Lilac : 5 dégustateurs
Rose : 5 d
Lily of the valley: 4 d
Verbena: 4 d
Lime tree: 4 d

Carte Or Millésime 2006 :
  40% Chardonnay from Villers-Marmery (1er Cru)
  60% Pinot Noir from Verzy et Verzenay (Grand Cru)
Peony: 5 dégustateurs
Violette : 4 d
Star Anise: 3 d
Lime tree: 3 d
Hawthorn : 3 d

4th of may.

1st of May.

28th of april

Nothing change those last 2 days because of cold temperatures and humidity.

26th of April.

The coton that insulate the bud was washed by the hard rain we had today. The vines uses this watter to accelerate the maturation of the bud.

Our Austalian contact visit us.

Twice a year, an Australian frien crazy for wine in general, and much more for champagne comes to France. One is during spring and one is for harvest time. We are happy that, this time again, he took time to come visiting us.

Today, Marie-Noëlle proposed a clear wine tasting of our Chardonnay plots from Villers-Marmery (1er Cru of the Montagne de Reims) then we taste the champagne cuvées made with only Chardonnay as our Blanc de Blancs (100% Chardonnay from Villers-Marmery / 70% harvest 2007 and 30% of reserve wine aged with the solera pethod since 1968) and the cuvée Marie-Amélie vintage 2004 and 2006  (100% chardonnay from Old vines of more than 50 years, without malolactic fermentation). Minerality was the guest star.

Thank you Victor and à bientôt.

24th and 25th of April.

24th of April

25th of April

Launching.

Sexual confusion.

-"What are all those people doing in the vines with their basket in the hand ? It's not harvest time !"

That is the question that you might ask if you had crossed today the vineyard of Villers-Marmery (1er Cru Montagne de Reims). Well, this tuesday the 16th of April 2013 is the day when all the growers of the village decided to fight gainst two butterflies, we should say their caterpillars : "The Eudemis and the Cochylis".

Eudemis and Cochylis are part of the most damaging pests for the clusters. They perforate the berries, causing injuries that offer the best conditions for moistures and grey rot.

This method of struggle consist in attaching in the vines the small capsules (we called them rak) at the rate of about 500 per hectare. The will spray syntethic pheromones equivalent to the one of the female of both butterflies species. This high concentration will not allow the male to identify femalesn and therefore their will not reproduce in the vines...and so, they will never lay in caterpilars in the vines.

These pheromones are specific to these two species. There is no interaction on the rest of the insects. And because the spray in highly concentrated (only above the vineyards) the effect is on a small area, and butterfly can reproduce while they fly over the forest or the fields.

Tears of the vine.

First real day of Spring.

What a pleasure to feel more than 10°C of temparatures loke the past weeks. It was more than 20°C this sunday 14th of April that we can consider as the first real day of spring 2013.

Vines is not wrong  a,d, as the early afternoon the rising of sap made the first cry of the vine. "Cry of the vine ?" Yes, when the sap is coming up in the branches, if flows through the "wounds of pruning" not yeat completely healed : we said that vines are crying. Bud break sould come soon now.

Conséquences of a late spring.

Compared to last year, the vine has more than 15 days late. Last year at the same time, bud had openend and the first leave was forming. Today, our future branch is still protected from the cold in his cocoon.

But it's completly normal with such weather conditions. If calendar announces the spring for already 3 weeks, winter don't wanna leave the seat and makes resistance. Just one or two beautiful days with warmer températures (an average of 11°C in the all day) for the bud to open.

On our side, no problem, this late bud opening secure us everyday more against the damage from morning frost.

Bottling with classic cork.

The traditionnal corking wath abandoned in the eraly 1970s in favour of the metal capsule.

It is two year that we decided to use again this tradional method (so long and tedious) for some of our vintages. After tasting the cuvées of last year, and comparing them with the same "wine" with metalic cap, we found that maturity, body, quality of aging and the "opening" of the flavours was different, but very good, with the classic cork. So this year, it's more than 2000 bottles have been corked the old way.

Easy to recognize with the rectangular circle.

because this method has quite disappeared, it was hard to find old machines and operators able to wotk like in the past.But what a pleasure to watch these old mechanisms older than 40 years old working with so muche care and precision.

Manual feeling.

Corking and stapling.

This vintage 2012 classified Grand Cru is blended with 70% of Pinot Noir and 30% of Chardonnay both from Verzy and Verzenay. It will age 5 years in our cellar before the "degorgement".

Tirage (Bottling) 2013.

An important step in the year just ended. It's the bottling, that we called "tirage" or "mise en bouteilles", or simply "mises" by our elders. For you information, our adress is "rue des Mises".

After the clear-wine tasting (see article refering on this blog), Marie-Noëlle combined the wines and elaborate the futur cuvées. Union of grape varieties, of vintages, of plots or single vintage...All the "savoir-faire" and héritage combine to reinvent the house taste for this year.

The equivalent of 58 000 bottles was realized. Obviously, a huge part is 75cl (classic bottle size) but also half-bottle, Magnum and jeroboams are bottles on those two days.

Once filled, the bottles are capped with a metal capsule that ensures a perfect seal. Then they descended to the lowest floor of the cellar (6 metres below ground) and stored horizontal, using the famous wood sticks calles "lattes".

The process of the second fermentation will take place in the bottle, and the carbonuic gaz that result can't escape from the bottle, so it will mix with the wine and give it its effervescence. Then, they will age 4-6 years in our cellars before coming out for the "degorgement".

Champagne and Hand-Made bicycles by JRD

Julie Racing Design, the creator of artisanal bicycles made us an honor by assiciating Champagne Henriet-Bazin to his last work : a road bike made in steel, with full suspesion system without axle (softride) built for hard tour such as "Paris-Roubaix"

Kris, the foudor is a real artist, doing most of the steps bi itself, welding the tubes, creating the shapes and géometry, always inventing new solutions to make the bikes more efficient, bieautiful and unique. The artist is also painting the bikes. Even if bicycle don't turn you crazy, you should give a look at :  http://julieracingdesig.canalblog.com

Thank you very much Kris...and now, I want one !

Bulles d'Hélène : Importer at Luxembourg.

When a women from champagne and in love for Champagne move away from the land she was born, it's sometimes to promote it better. Hélène is the foundor of "Bulles d'Hélène" (Helen's bubbles) and she want to share her passion for terroir champagne from growers and producers.

Thank you Hélène for being such an ambassador.

13th of March : Last snow ?

We can't say if it's the last snow fall of the season. But spring is supposed to arrive very soon. !