Over the seasons, Pascal Mazet takes care of his vineyard and his wine by following different stages ensuring quality and personality to a champagne of excellence.
Through the year, he makes a point of working the soil in the rows to ventilate it and bury the natural organic enrichment. The ground cover is maintained through normal grass-cutting. These cultural practices avoid erosion, preserve an intense activity of the wildlife and encourage deeper root growth of the vine.
With a steady observation of the vineyard, interventions are decided on a case-by-case basis depending on the development of possibly detected diseases.
Here's a glimpse of a typical champenoise year.
The wine
Throughout the harvesting time, pressing is done at the estate in a pneumatic press with a capacity of 2000 kg (4400 lbs). Grapes are pressed slowly, smoothly and progressively in order to extract only the pulp juice containing sugars, acids and aroma from which come the finesse of champagne.
As soon as the juice is in the cuverie (fermenting room containing the vats), the vinification - or primary alcoholic fermentation - can begin. this stage consists in transforming the juice into wine and is done at a low, controlled temperature. Pascal Mazet then provokes the malolactic fermentation.
The wine blending, founder stage of all of the cuvées, is a blend of wines with different aromatic and organoleptic qualities, whose aim is to create a wine superior to the sum of its parts. Pascal Mazet blends his wines with three different grape varieties, to which he adds reserve wines (except for the vintages).
This is how he creates his champagne and reflects his own vision and personal style.
A few months later, the tirage is done. It's the step when wine is bottled for the prise de mousse (setting the foam). This is the secondary fermentation needed to obtain sparkling wine under the action of natural yeast, which will transform all the sugar added during the tirage. Pascal Mazet's champagnes are stored in chalk cellar from 3 to 5 years or even more depending on the cuvées and vintages.
The last stage before selling is the wine dosage and corking. The addition of a liqueur de dosage - a mixture of sugar and wine - is meant to smoothen the wine as all the sugar it contained previously was consumed during the prise de mousse. Dosage enables to determine a sweetness scale, in increasing order of sweetness specifically to champagne: extra brut (no additional sugar), brut (very dry) and demi-sec (medium-sweet).
The vine
January to March - Taille: pruning occurs from mid-January to the end of March. Through its precision and accuracy, this is the action which will determine the quantity and quality of the harvest. The two methods used by the house are the Cordon de Royat pruning for Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier; it's a short pruning on long cane. The second method is the Chablis pruning for Chardonnay; it's a long pruning on long cane, making it hold its fruits on the extremities.
April - Liage: binding takes place right after pruning, in the beginning of April. Canes are put on either side of the holding wire and they're attached around it with small special wires protected with paper or another biodegradable material. Environnemental tasks start afterwards. They're different actions needed to control the general vegetation development.
Environnemental tasks start afterwards. They're different actions needed to control the general vegetation development.
May - Ebourgeonnage: in May, disbudding is an important procedure in vine growing. It allows to adjust the potential crop size prepared at the time of the pruning. On each vine stock, the counter-buds and vine shoots must be removed as they are non fruit-bearing.
Relevage: tying is necessary around the end of May, when the shoots grow fast (up to 50 cm). At this moment, they are tied and maintained in a vertical position with the help of wires. This particular position is the root of the champenoise vine architecture.
June - Palissage: trellising starts at the end of June. The aim is to separate the shoots and to hold them in their natural order with threads and hooks. This way, the foliage isn't packed and gets the most sun. It also allows a good air flow thus avoiding rot.
July and August- Rognage, émaillage, effeuillage: from the beginning of July to the harvesting, trimming what grows out of the trellising is necessary. It includes leaf-thinning (cutting off the useless new growths) and leaf-pulling (removing certain leaves so that the berries can get the most sun for their maturing).
September - Vendanges: the grape harvesting can begin. The harvest of Pascal Mazet's vineyard usually lasts from 7 to 10 days. As everywhere else in the Champagne region, the grapes are exclusively picked by hand as they must be kept intact and harvested with great care.
