The traditional Champagne method is used all over the world and is a general indication of a certain level of quality. The method is quite complex, and fascinating to study.
Harvest in Champagne happens in October and is done entireley by hand. No machine harvesting is allowed in Champagne.
Pressing is done in the pressoir coquart, a [...]
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Champagne is generally considered to have some pretty bad weather. It’s the most northerly wine growing area in France, and it’s proximity to the English channel cools down the region quite a bit. It also gets quite a bit of rain, about 26 inches annually. The area is full of rolling hills that create many [...]
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For a wine to be labled as Champagne, all of the grapes used to make that wine have to be grown in Champagne. In addition, the secondary fermentation must take place within the bottl the wine is going to be drank from, not in a tank.
All the vineyards in Champagne are rated according to L’echelle [...]
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Garage wines are a new movement in French wines. They involve very small production amounts, usually from the right bank area. The winemaker takes exquisite care in every step of the process, with almost no consideration for the cost involved. They are usually made with predominently Merlot in the blend, and are aged in new [...]
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The areas outside of Médoc and Sauternes have their own classification systems. This is part of what makes French wine so difficult to understand. The only way to get your head around it is basically to memorize everything, unfortunately. Here are how the other areas of Bordeaux classify themselves:
Graves
In 1959, Graves decided to classify [...]
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Because the 1855 classification only included a small number of wineries, in 1939 the Cru Bourgeois system was introduced. It includes over 200 properties and is divided between 9 Cru Bourgeois Exceptionnel, 87 Cru Bourgeois Supérieur, and 151 Cru Bourgeois. The system was updated to include new wines in 1978, and again in 2003. The [...]
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In 1855, Paris was holding a universal exhibition, kind of a world’s fair. They decided it would be a good idea to show off their finest wines to the world, so they realized they needed to decide on exactly which wines were the best. They decided to approach the bordeaux chamber of commerce and asked [...]
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The way wine sales of high-end Bordeaux wines works can be a bit strange sometimes. It works a bit like a stock market, complete with speculating investors and plenty of penny stocks that never amount to anything as far as value. For a prestigious Bordeaux Chateau, cash flow can be a difficult issue, as much [...]
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As you can see in the map above, Bordeaux is divided into three main areas. Well, actually maybe it doesn’t look like that at all when you look at that map, does it! This is where things start to get very complicated. The first thing you should notice is the main body of water [...]
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White wine vinification in Bordeaux is now carried out almost exclusively in stainless steel tanks, which offers the ability to control the temperature of the grape must during fermentation, which has increased the quality of white wines. In Graves, most of the white wine produced is now being ages in new oak barrels. Many other [...]
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