The vineyards of Champagne are small. With an average size of just 12 ares or the equivalent of 1200 square meters, these vineyards are in fact the smallest average in France. Each time they are passed on from one generation of winegrowers to the next, they become even smaller. Ours are no exception.
Alain and his two sisters own three hectares of mainly Chardonnay- and Pinot Meunier-grapes and a little bit of Pinot Noir on top. These vines have all been planted from the beginning of the 1960’es and into the 1980’es which gives them an age between 30 and 50 years. Considerable in Champagne where the average is 35 years. Our vines however still supply a sufficient amount of high quality grapes.
Our plots are situated in three different places in the communes of Souliéres and Givry-les-Loisy and Loisy-en-Brie just outside the Côte des Blancs-region near another terroir known as the Val du Petit Morin.
The plots are Les Crochettes, Belles Feuilles and Vieilles Grandmeres.
They are all placed on the côte above Vertus. This slope follows a north-south and later an east-west direction in a height of 250 meters above the sea. At its feet the farmed land of a vast plain begins, the Champagne Crayeuse.
All the vineyards will eventually be replanted in the next decades as we will take over the daily work in the last two hectares that currently are explored by a cousin. This will also be the opportunity to analyse the contents of the soils in order to decide if and where we can do our own single plot champagne.
