A VERY FINE VINTAGE
Florent, how would you describe the clear wine tastings that take place each year?
The tasting of clear wines is one of the highlights in the life of our House. As a family, with my brother Lionel and our parents Evelyne and Christophe, we taste the wines from the previous year’s harvest: more than one hundred wines from fifty crus representative of the Champagne region. Each wine has its own characteristics, so it is necessary to decide which ones, when blended, will give the best champagnes and reflect the House’s style. It takes a little experience, but we like to think that there is also some intuition involved. It’s a fairly magical moment.
What do you think of the wines from the 2020 vintage?
2020 will be a very fine vintage. Our tastings revealed fruity, luscious, generous and very expressive wines; wines that offer great substance, structure and volume on the palate. This year the Pinot Noirs have stolen the show, especially those from the Montagne de Reims. They have true power underpinned by very fine tautness. With each tasting, I am always delighted to see how our decisions have brought out the best quality in the wines. Our work on grape selection is fundamental. We choose to press the grapes according to their origin and to vinify the harvest from each vineyard individually, to better understand the special characteristics of each plot. We are developing barrel-maturing of the wines. All this allows us to obtain the widest and most precise range possible and makes the composition of our blends particularly exciting. This year, we also worked on single-vineyard batches that we vinified in vats as well as in barrels. I like the idea of being able to progress a little more each year, to gain in precision by working on plot-by-plot selection, on the identity of each wine.
When will the wines from the 2020 harvest be ready for drinking?
We are preparing a Grand Vintage 2020, which will be ready to drink in 7 to 8 years. Joyau de France 2020 will be available within 10 to 12 years. This might seem a long time to wait, yet it is also very short for a champagne house that is nearly two hundred years old. In any case, these are the ideal times for our wines to be enjoyed at their full maturity.
