Cultivating and elaborating

Three grape varieties that belong to the family of pinots are mainly used to produce grapes that compose the elaboration of champagne:

The Chardonnay (26%*)

White grape which gives a fresh and delicate wine.

The Pinot noir (37%*)

Black grape with colorless pulp which gives a robust wine and with a fine bouquet.

The Pinot Meunier (37 %*)

A black grape with a colorless pulp named “morillon” at the Middle Age. A little late compared with the pinot noir. It gives a wine close to some pinot noir but fruitier.

Because we are proud to know how work these demanding grape varieties and because we do not choose to take the easy road, you can discover them in 5 out of 7 Mater & Filii champagnes including the cuvées “Symphonie“, “Crescendo” and “Fût de chêne“.

More rarely, we can also find traditional grape varieties (on very limited surfaces, on a few hectares):

– The Arbane,
– The “jeune meslier”,
– The Pinot gris (also called fromenteau),
– The white Pinot.

The most famous white wine, champagne, is mostly produced … from black grapes.

How is it possible ? By controlling, during the harvest, that the colorless pulp of the the grape is not stained by exterior skin of black grapes, because it’s the grapes skin that gives the pulp its red color.

* Of the cultivated area – Data recorded in 2016

The grape-harvest

Grape-harvest (or picking) is a manual work. Machines are forbidden because it would damage the grape. It cannot clean the clusters, get rid of potential rot, nor select ripe grapes only.

Grape-harvests begin at a date established by the CIVC, thanks to samples made in the weeks preceding the harvest to determine the maturity of the grape. Grape-harvests end with a party called “cochelet” (or sometimes “chien” – dog).

Pressing and “débourbage”

Pressing takes place immediately after picking grapes in hydraulic or pneumatic presses, and the amount of cleaned juice cannot exceed 25.50 hl for 4 000 kg (8 818.5 lbs) of pressed grapes. Most of the time, the “first juice” (20,50 hl), called “cuvée”, is turned into wine separately from the rest and gives some high-quality wine compared with the second juice or “taille” (5 hl). The following juice or “rebêche” (1 % to 4 % of the volume), cannot claim to be called champagne and is turned into ordinary wine or sent in distilleries. The “débourbage” consists of eliminating particles and plant residues.

Champagne is made using the champenoise method, sometimes called traditional method, which consists of fermenting the must twice, the first time in vats or in barrels, the second time inside the bottle, in the cellar.

First fermentation in vats or in barrels

The first fermentation, also called alcoholic fermentation, is done at a low temperature and identically to the one that still wine (i.e. not effervescent) undergo. This process can be followed – but it is not always the case – with malolactic fermentation. The cellar master will allow malolactic fermentation if he wishes some structured champagne. He will avoid it and thus will stop the fermentation at the end of the alcoholic fermentation – if he wishes some sharper wine.

Assembly

At the beginning of the year (depending on the harvest) and after several filterings, wine is clear enough to be tasted and thus we can proceed to the assembly. As this crucial stage can have important consequences, it is completed with rigor by our cellar masters, Florence MACHET and Jérôme CORBON. Every year and in variable proportions, they assemble varietal wine , vintage wine (wine from Troissy and Dormans) and kinds of wine with different ages (in the appellation champagne) to assure you a continuity in the oenological and organoleptic qualities of wine and the constancy of taste concerning your cuvées.

Second fermentation in bottles

When it’s time to bottle the wine obtained, we add the “liqueur de tirage” made of sugar and yeast. Yeast will consume the sugar, transform it into alcohol and release some carbon dioxide which makes wine naturally sparkling. This liqueur de tirage thus engages the second and last fermentation, also called “prise de mousse”. Wine bottles are then corked with metallic capsules similar to that of beer bottles.

Wine aging

Bottles are put in deep cellars and lie there. Then begins the wine aging period of 15 months at least (“statutory period” says Jérôme, as a jurist reflex) for non-vintage wine, and of three years or more for vintage cuvées. Based on how long wine from each cuvée can be kept, and on the year of the harvest, the Mater & Filii champagnes rest between 2 and 5 years in the cellars. Just like the first one, the second fermentation produces abundant dregs that have to be removed from the wine afterward.

Remuage

After this slow aging process, bottles are inclined with their neck facing down are their are placed on special shelves. Regularly, bottles (or the shelves) are are moved one-eighth or a quarter tour to remove dregs from the inside of the bottle and make them come down towards the neck. With the bottles progressively standing up again and an alternate rotation (at first to the right, then to the left) all dregs will gather against the capsule after approximately two months. Bottles are then stored with their tip facing down, on points.

Disgorging stage

To hunt sediments, we put the top of the neck into a bath of brine at – 25°C (-13°F) for a few minutes. It creates a small ice cube which catches the sediments. When the capsule is removed, sediments and the ice cube are expelled by the pressure inside the bottle (approximately 6 atmospheres). It is the disgorging stage.

Dressing

Once the disgorging is done, the bottles of champagne – measured out or not – are closed with a cork held by a muselet. Then the bottles are put in a cellar for an ultimate aging period before you can actually taste their champagne.

A very strict legal environment and some rigorous internal process allow the House Mater and Filii to insure you the quality and the continuous authenticity of its champagne.

• We can only produce grapes in the Champagne region to make Champagne wine and only in the delimited zones giving the right to use the designation Champagne. In these delimited zones, it is also prohibited to cultivate other varietal grapes that those authorized by the law.

• Places where the elaboration takes place can only receive wine with a transport certificate delivered by the Tax and Excise Duty Department which guarantees that wine is produced in champenois vineyards and receive the Champagne designation. No other wine can be brought into the places where Champagne wine is elaborated.

• Before champagne is completely produced, it cannot leave its region of origin. The elaboration must take place there until the end, even the dressing of the bottle.

• It is forbidden to produce any other sparkling wine than champagne in the Champagne region.