Christopher Rowe

We have seen quite a bit of the ‘tourist precinct’ of Paris over the past two days, by that I mean we have seen the Eiffel Tower (multiple times), visited the Louvre, the Arc de Triomphe, even shopped our way through the Paris Christmas markets.

So for something a bit different we decided to escape the city and spend the day in the country side of France, (for those who know my girlfriend well) visiting none other than the Champagne region of France, the birth place and present day residence of Moët & Chandon.

One of the first things they implore on you in France, particularly the Champagne region, is that unless the grapes are from this small region of France, you are not drinking Champagne, merely sparkling white wine. It is the grapes grown in this particular region of France that makes it Champagne.

Grapes need a constant minimum temperature of 10 degrees in order to ripen, if the temperature was to drop below this during the season entire crops would be destroyed. The Champagne region of France has an average minimum temperature only degrees above this, providing very unique growing conditions for the fruit, almost always teetering on being too cold. You might say, not too cold, not too warm; just right.

The Moet brand began production in 1750, with Madame de Pompadour one of their biggest clients. “She would drink Champagne for breakfast, lunch and dinner” our Moet guide joked (or maybe not). Our guide had a very eccentric personality, her curly fiery red-hair only added to her character. It was clear she was very knowledgeable and passionate about her job and the people she worked for. In any case, she told a good story which made the tour all the more enjoyable. If anything, I wouldn’t be surprised if she kept Reinette’s tradition alive herself – working for Moet it would be difficult not to be tempted to.
On average, Moet and Chandon annually produce 26 million bottles of champagne. The grapes for the harvest come from their own 1000 hectares of vineyards as well as contributions from over 200 smaller vineyards in the region.

They are the only cellar which manufacture their own yeast for fermentation, with a specialised Bio-Laboratory on site (again, the only cellar to do so) the yeast is extracted from the skin of the grapes during harvest, cultivated and used in the fermentation of the champagne.

Our tour took us deep within Moet, the cellars spanning out for miles underground on various levels. If you pulled out all the tunnels and ran it in a straight line you would have over 24 miles in length.

Each tunnel, similar to the last featured small arced rooms, about 3 meters across and 5 meters deep, each containing carefully stacked bottles of wine, undergoing the initial stage of fermentation. These bottles were larger than your average750ml bottle too, they were Magnums, 1.5ltr bottles, the same size bottle used in sporting celebrations like Formula One.

Each stack of wine comes from a different winery. The stack shown above features 17 rows deep of Magnums, over 11,000 bottles all up.
The wine will remain here fermenting for anywhere between 2 and 5 years, even longer if it is a special vintage wine. After this stage, the dead yeast is extracted and then the responsible role of blending comes into play.

Unlike wines or vintage champagnes, general champagne does not have a year date stamped on the bottle. This is significant for the very simple reason that a champagne bottle in 2004 should taste no different to a bottle bought in 2008, they have to be the same – this is part of the legislation that needs to be followed when producing champagne.

This comes down to the responsibility of the cellar master. The cellar master must then sample all the various wines harvested that year, and mix them together to re-create the same blend as last year and the year before. Since seasons vary thus affecting grape yield and sweetness, the combination is different each year. To assist in this delicate task, legislation requires that 10% of completed champagne stock from the previous season be kept especially for blending with the new harvest, thus producing the exact same taste as last season and the seasons before that.

Every now and then, there is an exceptional season, where the fruit produced is in a league of its own. In these circumstances the cellar master can take it upon themselves to create and release a Vintage edition champagne, one where they have complete creative control and does not require blending of the original stock.

Not every year yields a Grand Vintage, Moet have only released 70 Grand Vintages between 1842 and 2012, the latest of these being the Grand Vintage of 2004 – naturally we had to buy a bottle!

(Below) From the dusty underground dungeons of the Moet cellars, to the showroom floor.

Finally, and I should of started with this so you read the post correctly, various mispronunciations of Moët are known, including “mo-way” and “mow-ee”. The correct pronunciation is “mo-wett” or “m-wet” , as the word is pronounced in Dutch, not French. The company itself is quite firm on this and takes pains to point it out on factory tours.

“Come quickly, I am drinking the stars!“—Dom Perignon, when tasting the first sparkling champagne.