Champagne is racing into its earliest harvest yet, even if many growers and pickers appear to be still on holiday. On August 4, numerous Champagne producers were shocked to find out the harvest would be imminent.
The opening results of the Réseau Matu (RM), Champagne's preharvest ripeness monitoring network, showed the average potential alcohol degree to be at 8.2 percent, an increase of 3 percentage points in one week. A week later, the RM shows an appellation average of 10.2 percent potential alcohol for a total acidity of 9g/l. This translates to a sugar/acid ratio of 19.7, just under the ideal harvest limit of 20. The message on August 11 was thus "the time to harvest is now".
In reality, the harvest is already on its way. It was opened on August 6, by Vincent Finot, a winegrower in Montgueux, who obtained an exemption to harvest a vineyard where the potential alcohol had already reached 11 percent, the acidity levels were plummeting, and sour rot had begun to set in. The whole village of Montgueux subsequentially requested a derogation, on the same grounds, to open the picking on August 8. The village was blessed with 30 mm of rain at the beginning of the week, which set off the ripening at lightning speed.
Other villages that requested starting dates before the official announcement of the "ban des vendanges" (official harvest opening dates per village) on August 12 were Landreville, Merrey-sur-Arce, Neuville-sur Seine, Buxieul, Celles-sur-Ource, Polisy, Vivier-sur-Artaut in the Aube department, and Ambonnay and Montgenost in the Marne, all opting to begin harvest on August 10, and Villenauxe-la-Grande, in the Aube, requested to start on the August 11. However, a third of the appellation finally settled on August 17, and a further 10 percent opted for a date between August 18 and 22.
As a comparison, last year, the harvest opened on August 18, and was the earliest harvest ever, a record that was smashed by ten days this year. Pascal Doquet, from the organic domain Champagne Pascal Doquet, told Wine-Searcher that these ten days had been shaved off the ripening cycle, which had been reduced to 72-75 days this year (compared to 82-85 days last year). In addition, the mild weather from the middle of January onwards, resulted in the earliest start ever of the growing season. Budbreak came at the end of March, flowering at the end of May, so the harvest had been anticipated for the end of August. The acceleration of the growing season by 12 percent was the variable no one saw coming and as a result, despite the demand for earlier opening dates, most growers are not logistically ready to start picking until the week of August 17.
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