Mantis in the vines.

 Nature often offer nice surprises. It happens the day before yesterday when we came back home. passing along the vines, i saw this very nice praying mantis jumping on a leaf of Chardonnay...you can imagine that run to catch my camera and shot the beauty.

Give me a sign !

Climbing on a grape of Chardonnay. As you can se, it will need a few days more to be mature.

Harvest within 10 days.

The Harvest  will stard within 10 days at Champagne Henriet Bazin.

Our villages have created a network of control of maturity to provide accuraute dates of maturation for the harvest start.

The last samples and analysus were made last thursday an,d the results are :

Chardonnay from Villers Marmery will be picked-up from the 18th of September

Pinot Noirs from verzy and Verzenay will be receive their first shot of cisors on the 19th of September.

We are ready !

See you soon !

Ripening...again.

We spent 2 weeks on holiday, but vines kept working. Now, all the grain are blacks for the Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier and are light green for the Chardonnay.

As you can see on this comparative picture, grappes are now heavier because their haverage weight is increasing as the level of suggar is rising.

Harvest will come soon...

Mildew on the grappes.

Since the time taht we are talking about it, here is finally, wth no doubt, the devastating effects of mildew on our grapes.Part of the grape don't have sap and the affected grapes dry and fall.

The ripening keep going.

Withe the sun and heat, ripening keep going. More and more fruits are turning dark et the grapes of Pinot Noir are starting to take their final color.

Hare on the terrace.

Last week it was an Hedgehog. Today it's a young Hare who came to visit us on the terrace. Our mouvements did'n't afraid it but the noise of the camera when i shot the picture did, even if I was inside with all the doors and windows closed !

The Ripening.

A few grains begin to change color under the action of the sun. We call this phase of the cycle of the evolution of the grape : The Ripening.

Pinot Noir are turning red.

Sugars are now starting to build up in the grape and causes a fall in organic acids. The grape is now at its final size.

The new color also marked the appearence of the phenolic compounds that are tannins :

-Anthocyanins are going to give the red color to the skin.

-Flavones make grain pale green, slightly transparent.