Champagne Tange-Gérard so far

Proudly presenting: Champagne Tange-Gérard.

We may not be the smallest brand in Champagne but we are probably amongst them with a few thousand bottles sold per year since 2009 and gradually growing in numbers. We began with 3.000 bottles per year and are currently between 6.000 and 8.000 bottles per year.

Already in the late nineties Alain Gérard began to deal with his first family vineyard, in 2006 Solveig Tange joined him in the vineyards. Since 2012 we have dealt with three hectares of Chardonnay, Pinot Meunier and Pinot Noir in Soulières in the far end of the Côte des Blancs.

This has allowed us to set up a small range of different Champagnes, that we have sold directly since 2009 and via our importers in Denmark and Luxembourg.

Step by step we have widened our assortment with new members of our bubbly family. The process continues: At the moment we work on our first plot champagnes.

This broad selection of different champagnes - vintage, rosé and non vintage champagnes - is possible because we do the vinifacation at our nearby cooperative where we with a small group of growers decide some blends together with the oenologue of the place. Here we have access to all sorts of state-of-the-art equipment as well.

We currently sell our champagnes to restaurants in Denmark and Luxembourg and to particulars in mainly Denmark and France.

Please send a mail or phone at +33 (0) 9 82 34 08 66
if you are interested in our prices, possibilities of delivery or to come visit at our domaine.

Soulières, March 2015, Alain Gérard & Solveig Tange

Come see us or invite us

We like to share our passion for champagne with you. Thus we welcome visitors for tastings and visits in the vineyards and winery.

We suggest a short walk to discover our vineyards and the demanding manual work here all year around. In winter, spring, summer or autumn you may even want to try the manual task of the season yourself. With more time available - yours and ours - we may visit the winery in Vertus. Eventually we will end up in our vendangeoir to taste champagnes.

Every year we do tastings elsewhere as well: Wineclubs, business networks, collegues and friends in Paris, Bruxelles, Copenhagen or elsewhere. To talk, enjoy, exchange, sell/buy and spread the good news and nice bubbles of champagne.

Interested? Please share your ideas with us. Send a mail or phone at +33 (0) 9 82 34 08 66.

 

About Alain Gérard

 

"Why would you want to do something else, when you can do this every day?" No, actually, why bother? The idea was already present somewhere in Alain Gérards mind for a long time. His former collegue from England just happened to be the first to put it in words.

About one year later Alain finally decided to step into it. Stopped his career as a manager of the French daughter company of the English Higgins Group. Specialised in potatoes he’d operated all over Europe for more than 15 years. For a long time with this wish to return to the roots, the family vineyards, once he’d seen and learned enough about the world of potatoes.

The vineyards begin a stone’s throw from the family farm. Alain has learned about it since childhood. From his mother whom he had to follow from small age, and from his grandfather and uncle. Thus he learned it all the old fashioned way, where one generation transmits its know-how to the next as it has been done in the countryside for centuries. Alain listened to it all.

Today however, he combines it with his own thinking. A logic, that combines his higher engineering education from ESAP: Ecole Superieure d’Agriculture de Purpan in Toulouse and the experience obtained through the work with farmers all over Europe for so many years.

• In 1997 he took over the first of a number of family vineyards to become a weekend winegrower in Champagne.In 1997 he took over the first of a number of family vineyards to become a weekend winegrower in Champagne.
  
  
• With the next plot in 2006 the total acreage was more than one hectare, and the idea to become a fulltime winegrower moved closer.
  
  
• In 2009 the old dream finally became reality. Champagne Tange-Gerard began working full time.
  
  
• Five years later, in 2013, the company grows three hectares of Chardonnay and Pinot vines and currently sell some thousand bottles of Champagne each year. With more to come.

 

About Solveig Tange

 

As a Dane Solveig Tange knew no more about champagne than most people when she arrived in the region of Champagne in 2003: 1) If somebody buys you champagne you get a special treat. 2) Quality champagne is likely to make you feel good fast. Her horizon widened considerably as she decided to get deeper involved in the work with the grapes.

She had already had her first rendez-vous with the grapes in 2002. One day of vendange is not much but it was enough to understand that the only way you can join this special world of vineyards and wines is to do it yourself. Her first full grape harvest was in 2004. Two years later she passed her pruning exams - a proud moment indeed - and since very useful as well.

The process of pruning is long and hard. From January to the month of March each vine is manually reduced to very little to maintain the health of the plants. Later surplus buds will be removed, the new branches bound and surplus branches removed and the rest rearranged along the wires. The work in the vineyards follows the seasons and provides simple pleasures of the open air. Nature as it is: Always the same, yet constantly changing.

Originally trained as a journalist, she came from a world of words. What could be more natural than to nail this new perspective of life with her poetic approach? A book about champagne from her perspective in the vineyards is on its way, and the blog about the work in the vineyards spiced up with photos, local angles and news from the business ensures her daily need of telling it all.

Since 2009 the Champagne Tange-Gerard label has made a big dream come true. It is the end of story of the grapes, but also where it all basically begins. The story of champagne begins in the vineyards and ends in the glasses, and everything in between is worth telling in words and try in tastes. This is all about selling a wine of course, but it is also about exchanging a passion. This is where everybody who likes or may like champagne can meet on common ground and talk about it. Here in Champagne or wherever you are. You may even like Solveig discover that the more you taste and talk, the bigger your envy to taste even more.

 

 

Cooperatives changed the champagne world forever

The cooperative movement in Champagne has made winegrowers more independent than before. We elaborate our champagnes with a group of winegrowers from the same area. Like us, most of them own a few hectares of vineyards but most only run around half a hectare or less. When we join forces and grapes we can use equipments in a more efficient way and we can blend more wines with a final higher and more stable quality than from just one.

Most are based in the village of Vertus, others in neighbouring communes like Bergeres-les-Vertus and our own commune of Soulieres. In total grapes from 147 hectares are pressed and fermented into wines. This is enough to fill more than one million bottles of the standard size of 75 centilitres every year.

Our cooperative was founded in 1959. 30 years after it all began. The starting point of the movement was the great depression in 1929. Champagne sales dropped dramatically. The stocks of the champagne houses grew bigger, and the prices of grapes smaller. In the beginning of the 1930’es the grapes were so cheap that it was hardly worth it for the winegrowers to pick them up. At this stage some decided to press and ferment themselves rather than sell grapes at a loss. The wine and eventually the champagne could be sold.

The movement spread. Today 137 champagne cooperatives are supplied by 13.000 winegrowers. One fifth of these sell their own brand of champagne. Like us.

Today the services of our coop include the full chain of champagne making: Pressing, winemaking, bottle fermentation and aging with state-of-the-art equipment to fit all possible needs. On top, the knowledge of how the still wines and champagnes develop at different stages from young to mature and aged. Indispensable for the art of blending as the heart of champagne is the olfactory and gustatory memories of the winemakers.

Each year we work in this small committee of winegrowers who meet regularly in the autumn to taste and discuss the new still wines with the winemaker. We select those that will fit our needs in the required quantities for each future blend. The surplus is sold to several champagne houses. In February we progress and discuss – at times rather fiercely – the new possible blends. This is when the style of our champagnes is decided.

So far we can fit our own needs into the possibilities offered. Our grapes are present with those of the other coop growers in order to elaborate high quality blends and select the best plots for special champagnes.

Our ambition is to add pure Tange-Gérard plots to our current range of products when we have had the necessary time to evaluate the wines that can be elaborated with them. This is a process that will take a bit of time and it will later combine with sustainable winegrowing which is also part of our thinking.