Winegrowers’ portraits Charly-sur-Marne
Laforge-Testa has, for four generations, worked a vineyard of 5 hectares planted with 50% Pinot Meunier (as dictated by the location), 40% Chardonnay and 10% Pinot Noir. Today, 25,000 bottles of Champagne are produced every year. Her husband José Testa places great importance on the running of the vineyard, on the rigorous work of pruning, from the vine to the harvest (desuckering, disbudding in May), and also on the growing method using supervised control to obtain high quality grapes: “30% of our soils are tilled, 30% are covered in organic bark and 30% use crop cover. The harvesters sort the bunches when picking them. The grapes are harvested when the sugar/ acid levels are practically balanced, then crushed using a traditional press to extract the juice slowly, to preserve the quality. They are subject to gentle retrousses*, and only the heart of the vat is kept.
The wines undergo two fermentations in stainless steel vats and are classified by terroir: clay-limestone for Belles Vues or Chauffours (two hamlets), or sandy such as Les Sablons, Les Vieilles Vignes. The wooden maturing vats hold some of the reserve wines, the Chardonnay generally, which are used to add suppleness to the wines and not to give them wood notes. Then the blending and dosage are carried out, some wines are aged on racks, others in mass, arranged on wooden pallets.”
Lastly, a new product was introduced this year, in the Blanc de Blancs NV range, 100% Chardonnay, produced from 30 year-old vines, with a blend of grapes from several different plots at Crouttes-sur-Marne such as Belles Vues, Sablons, Chauffours and Vieilles Vignes. This wine was made from the 2006 harvest, blended with reserve wines from 2005, and can be enjoyed as a pre-dinner drink with oysters or seafood, or during a meal with poached lobster, for instance. A sip of this Laforge-Testa Blanc de Blancs reveals a fresh and vivacious wine, destined for success with export customers (United Kingdom, Germany and Italy) who had been asking Armelle Testa, head of administration and communication, to add a Blanc de Blancs to the range!
Château Belmar is run by a man and a woman who set themselves a crazy challenge: producing wine in the northern Sarthe region.
In the spring of 2022, Champagne Philipponnat celebrated its 500th anniversary during two exceptional dinners, in Reims and in Paris. Charles Philipponnat, the 15th generation, who has been...
During the harvest, we discovered some of Gérard Bertrand's properties. This is definitely a real eye-opener for the identity and personality of the wines!