Champagne has now decided how many kilos of grapes that growers will be allowed to pick this fall. Champagne differs from other districts in France when it comes to determining the yield.
In Champagne they make an assessment every year of how the market looks and based on that they decide how much champagne they will produce and thus, how many kilos of grapes they need to pick. This year the yield will be relatively low. Although export figures for non-European countries look pretty good, within the EU and France things are on the down side.
This year, growers are allowed to commercialize 10,500 kilos of grapes per hectare. They can harvest 10, 000 kilos in total and use old reserve wine equivalent to 500 kilos when doing the blending next spring. This amount of grapes will be transformed to 305 million bottles of Champagne.
Vine growers will also have the opportunity to pick an additional of 3,100 kg per hectare to put aside as a personal reserve wine. So in total the grower can harvest 13,100 kilos per hectare this year which is the equivalent of 84 hectolitres per hectare. The highest yield allowed in France for an appellation wine no doubt.
More: lachampagneviticole.fr
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Champagne is also a very interesting region to visit, be it at harvest time or at some other time of the year (when the winemaker might have more time to talk). A great way to visit Champagne is to do it on a wine tour with BKWine.
Travel to the wine regions with the wine experts and the wine tour specialists!
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