Champagne Henriot - Crafting the Perfect Blend

Summary

In this episode, Laurie Forster speaks with Alice Tétienne from the House of Henriot about the rich history of the champagne house, founded by a woman in 1808. They delve into the art of blending different grape varieties and crus to create unique champagnes, including the signature Brut Souverain and Blanc de Blancs. Alice shares insights on the challenges posed by climate change, emphasizing the importance of sustainable practices in viticulture.

Holiday Gift Ideas for Champagne Lovers
Reidel Extreme Champagne Glasses
Vin Glace Wine Chiller
Champagne Saver

Takeaways

• Henriot respects the history and terroir of its vineyards.
• Blending different crus is essential to creating unique champagnes.
• Climate change poses significant challenges to champagne production.
• Sustainable practices are crucial for the future of viticulture.
• The choice of glassware can greatly enhance the tasting experience.
• Vintage champagnes require long aging and careful monitoring.

Wines Tasted
Henriot Brut Souverain
Henriot Blanc de Blancs
Henriot Cuvee Hemera 2008

Transcript

Laurie Forster (00:01.688)

Welcome back to The Sipping Point. We're all about getting you ready for the holidays. I'm gonna give you some great gift ideas for the wine lover on your list today and for the next couple of weeks. And then I'm gonna bring in Alice Tetienne from Champagne Henriot. We're gonna taste three of her amazing champagnes and they might be a great idea for someone on your list or even just to ring in the new year. Okay, you have a champagne lover on your list. What do you get them?

Here's a couple ideas from me, things that I use all the time. Now, everyone's got flutes, it seems, but the new way of thinking are broader bold glasses. These are Riedel Extreme Champagne and Rosé. These allow a wider bowl so you can smell and taste more of the aromas and the flavors out of your champagne. The old flutes, although tall and slim and they keep the wine bubbly, don't allow you to really get all of the wine.

So consider these, I'll have a link to all my choices on the show page at thewinecoach.com/blog and then click on Champagne Henriot and it will have all the info on my gift ideas as well as what we taste a little later in the show with elites. All right, couple other things. This is what I call or what is called a Vin Glace and it's basically a Yeti for your wine bottle.

So this is all insulated. It has a screw on cap. And so you go ahead and you can just take that off. This is my little bubbly that I put in here. Once it's at the perfect temperature, throw it in your Vin Glace, screw on the top, and then it's gonna stay at temperature for hours. Whether it's on your dining table, out on the back porch, in the warmer months, or wherever you take it, you know your wine is gonna stay at temperature.

And this can be used with white wines, with sparkling wines. Every now and then there's a weird bottle that might not fit, but it'll fit most standard wine bottles. Love both of those things, use them all the time. And then maybe you wanna consider getting a real showstopper. We're gonna be tasting this wine coming up. This is the Hemera Vintage Champagne from Henriot. It is absolutely just outstanding.

Laurie Forster (02:24.06)

And you might also gift one of these great champagne savers that I introduced you to a few weeks ago when we had Domaine Willamette on the show. So I hope you'll consider one of those gifts for any. And that wine actually comes in a gift box as well. So it's an amazing presentation. And I'm not going to take a lot more time here on the upfront because I'm so excited to bring in Alice Tetienne. She came to Henriot after

being a native of the Champagne area, she fell in love with viticulture, which is the growing of grapes, and enology, which is the making of wine, and studied that in school, going on to get a master's in Champagne communication. With experience at Nicolas Feuillatte and Maison Krug, two of my other favorites, she came to Champagne Henriot and is just so dynamic. I'm excited to have her here on The Sipping Point.

So let's bring her in. Welcome, Elise.

Laurie Forster (00:01.357)

Welcome to the show, Elise. We are so excited for all things champagne. It is amazing to have you. And are you in Champagne, France as we speak?

Alice Tétienne (00:12.31)

Yes, I'm in the house Les Olnoises, so it's the center of the house of Henriot in front of the vineyard.

Laurie Forster (00:19.913)

Love that. Well, the background looks amazing. And it's so great that, you know, we can talk to you here. I'm in Maryland, just so you know, just a state over from where we met in DC. And I have several of your champagnes here. But before we kind of get into tasting anything, I love, you know, all the history around your champagne house and a lot of strong females were responsible.

for these great wines. So if you wanna just kinda give us a little history background, I know it's too broad to go over all of it, but some highlights, that would be great.

Alice Tétienne (00:59.138)

Yeah, first the House of Henriot is a very historical house because we were born in 1808. And this house was founded by a woman, Apolline Henriot. You know that in Champagne, the presence of female is very, very important. A lot of houses were founded by women. So it was the case for the House of Henriot. And what I really enjoy is that

Apolline  was a grower before the foundation of the house. That means she had the feet in the ground, she loved the viticulture, she made viticulture. So the beginning was really a passion for a vineyard and a desire to shine a light on a specific vineyard.

Laurie Forster (01:42.849)

love that. And you do and you do it so differently in each of these wines that we're going to taste. But if people let's say are just coming to this, of course, the three main grapes of champagne are Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier. And you use them like a recipe. How do you decide? I know there are special styles where you only use white grapes or you only use red. But what is the sort of house style

Do you like more red fruit? Do you like more white fruit? Where do you stand on that?

Alice Tétienne (02:17.942)

In fact, we respect the story. The beginning of the house of Henriot was in the north of the Vineyard of Champagne in a sector named Montagne-de-Rince. It's a sector very famous for the Pinot Noir. So the beginning of the house, when Apolline Henriot founded the house, was in a sector of Pinot Noir. But in 1880, there was a big transition in the Vineyard of Henriot because the fourth generation of the Henriot family got married with a girl from another sector.

More in the south, in Côte des Blancs, it's a famous sector for Chardonnay. That means in 1880, the vineyards that were uniquely planted in Pinot Noir, uniquely from the north of the vineyard, became in majority planted in Chardonnay, in majority from the south part of the vineyard with Côte des Blancs. Since 1880, we respect that. I mean, we developed the vineyard, of course. We have 29 different crus in our vineyard today.

but we are in majority in Montagne-Reims and Côte-des-Blancs and we have a majority of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. The Chardonnay is major, followed very closely by the Pinot Noir, it's 50 % of Chardonnay, 45 % of Pinot Noir and 5 % of Meunier. Because more recently, 30 years ago, we decided to go in conquest of other screw planted in Meunier.

Because we think it's important to have a certain curiosity first for all the grapes variety we can find in Champagne area. Furthermore, with climate change, we need to adapt ourselves and know everything about all the grape varieties we have at our disposal in the AOC Champagne. And...

We consider it's a very nice variety because it contributes to other diversity of aromas and the objective of Henriot is to make champagne with lot of generosity, with lot of different nuances and diversity of aromas because we want to make alive wines, you know. We want to give emotions, lot of pleasure, so many facets of personality in the wines.

Laurie Forster (04:28.995)

Love that. each, you know, just like people each bring something to the table. And you mentioned you have 29 different crews or vineyards across all these different grapes. And I believe I was reading in the Brute that you use all 29 crews. And that was, I believe, the first champagne we were going to talk about. So tell me a little bit more. You know, people don't realize, I think, that

you're blending not only all these different vineyards, but also with a non-vintage champagne like the first two, you're also blending many different years together to kind of get the taste of your house. So tell me about how that's done, because it sounds like a very complicated blending process.

Alice Tétienne (05:16.942)

Yeah, in fact, the DNA of Champagne Area is blending exercise. We like that. We can blend different parts of the vineyards. We can blend different years in order to create a champagne that has the personality you want to give. For Henriot, in 1808, with the foundation of the house by Apolline, we decided to create a champagne that respected this specific savoir-faire or know-how from Champagne Area, the traditional craftsmanship of Champagne Area.

So Apolline created a champagne made by blend of the different crus she had because at the beginning of the house we had three different crus. A crus is a part of the vineyard. In general, it has the name of the village that is inside the vineyard and it's a location with a specific terroir, with specific exposition to the sun, specific soils, etc.

Inside the different crus, of course, we have different patch of vines with different personalities. But we know that each crus gives a certain personality and character. So the fact to have diversity of crus permit to have diversity of wines and permit to be able to do blend with different nuances. For Apolline , it was really important to respect that and to represent a whole vineyard.

So that's why she decided to make a champagne made by blend with all the crus she had. Today we respect that with the Henriot Brut de Souverain, this is the first creation of Apolline Henriot. We respect this philosophy to have all the crus we have in our vineyards. Yes, I mean, every year we craft a new blend of Henriot Brut de Souverain. And in fact, we select at least in every wines we obtained from the last harvest, we select at least one wine.

Laurie Forster (07:03.223)

using.

Alice Tétienne (07:11.032)

per crus from this harvest. And then we complete the palette of wines by others wines from those same crus in order to have more large palette of aromas to be sure to express all the facets of personality we have. Because you know, in a cru we have different plots of wine and we can have nuances. When we have, for example, two different characters, we will select those two different characters.

in the Henriot Brut de Souverain. And then, because we are able to blend different tiers in the blend, and this is exactly what Apolline Henriot wanted, we have reserved wine. Reserved wine are wines that we keep in stainless steel tanks in our cellar that are from

past harvests. The objective to that is to have others aromas, others personality. We cannot have in only one harvest. Because you know in one harvest, we have a certain influence of the year, of the vintage. We have an influence of the weather, on the profile of the wines. For example, if you take a year very warm, very dry, sometimes you have profile with mature fruits, you have strong profile.

you have low acidity and if you want to express all the facets of personality of your vineyard, you have to take reserved wine with more acidity, with more citrus profile, etc. in order to have a lot of nuances, lot of contrast in your blend. This is exactly what Apolline wanted. So we have in Henriot Brut Souverain many, many years. The oldest wine is from 1969.

The youngest wine in the bottle that are in the market now are from 18 So you imagine you have every harvest from 1969 to 2018. It's crazy but this is the way to deliver a champagne with generosity with Powerful but in the same time with elegance with much fruit but with citrus with many many contrasts and to have

Alice Tétienne (09:25.524)

Wine with a alive profile. More you do the tasting, more you wait, more the wine is open, more you feel new aromas. This is exactly what we want to have.

Laurie Forster (09:42.049)

Yes.

Laurie Forster (09:45.667)

Well, definitely with this, it's got so much power and intensity to it, the brew, I feel like, and such a long finish, meaning you just keep tasting it. You know, a lot of times I was taught to count how long do you keep tasting the wine after you take the sip and kind of, you know,

evaluating if it's a long finish or not. I know with the Brut and the Blanc de Blanc, you're aging these for about minimum of three years before release, which I guess is why you're saying 2018, I guess would be the the newest of the years that's in this bottle. But what do you look for when you're tasting your Brut champagne?

Alice Tétienne (10:37.912)

We really want to have something with complexity, generosity. When I say generosity, I mean many aromas different, many notes different. We want to have many things that happens and play together. We want to have generosity, but not something that is too much expressive, you know, because we are very attached to have a certain distinction and elegance.

Laurie Forster (10:55.286)

Okay.

Alice Tétienne (11:04.77)

That's why we really pay attention to not have too much type of wine expressive, strong, massive. We always balance with wines with more elegance, et cetera. So this is the first point. And then we like to have...

Vivacity and freshness because we consider this is the backbone of every champagne we craft at Henriot and it's really important. That's why during the harvest, we really pay attention to taste the grapes every day in order to select the best days of harvest to be exactly on the objective to have beautiful fruit, but not too mature, not green aromas.

and to be exactly at the good point with a of freshness and expression and emotions. We really want to feel that. So if we summarize, think Bruce O'Brien is about generosity, distinction and freshness.

Alice Tétienne (12:10.434)

The time is something very important too. We have the notion of terroir, all the cru we have defined the profile of our champagne, of course, because the raw material is the best condition to have quality. If you have good grapes, good terroir, you will have good wine. And we need to be sure to...

do their harvest at the good moment, we need to taste all the wines, we need to not have recipe, we don't have recipe, you talked about recipe before, to know the proportion of grapes, etc. for us, there is no recipe, there is just a philosophy to tell the whole vineyard we have, through all the crew we have, but the selection of the wines is only due to the tasting, because the objective is to take pleasure, give pleasure, and make great wines, so we cannot

Laurie Forster (12:53.996)

You

Laurie Forster (13:03.99)

Okay.

Alice Tétienne (13:04.27)

do it without feelings, emotional tasting. So that's why the decisions are due to the tasting. And then we need to be patient, we need to take time to do things. We have very seasonal process, we have long process. You see the youngest wine of Brut de Souverain in the market is based on 2018. We are in 2024.

So we need more, we need around six years to compose a new creation of Brut Souverain. It's very long because it's always the same seasons. We do the harvest at the middle of September. We do the winemaking process with alcoholic fermentation, malolactic fermentation. And then we begin the tasting. We do the tasting during four, five months.

And then we think to the blend and we do different creations, different versions of blends. We do it in laboratory, we taste and when we are convinced by a version, we decide to bottle it. We do the real blend in the winery and then we bottle the blend in June and July. So it's always the same philosophy. In July, in June and July, when we do the bottling, after the bottles go in the cellar and sleep.

during a few years, waiting the time to be disgorged a few years after and the time to be in the market. So yeah, it's a long process. And then a loose step is the tasting that decides again.

Laurie Forster (14:27.465)

Sleep.

Laurie Forster (14:44.595)

nice. A lot of tasting. So no recipe, more like I think I might have mentioned when we met, my husband is a chef and he rarely would cook by a recipe. It's more of a taste and the different components. So it sounds like that's what you're doing every year in figuring out, you know, what's going to go into each of your blends of wines. Does that sound about right?

Alice Tétienne (15:08.654)

Yes, yes, yes, absolutely, absolutely. Every year it's a new white paper, we need to recreate something.

Laurie Forster (15:12.579)

All right, yay. Well,

Laurie Forster (15:21.823)

Yeah, that makes it exciting, I bet because you just don't know what's coming your way. But next, the next wine you sent for for me to explore and for us to discuss is the Blanc de Blanc, which of course means white from whites and the white grape of champagne is Chardonnay. And we know through marriage, Chardonnay became a big part of your house. And so tell me about making a Blanc de Blanc.

I know obviously less crews that what go into the Brute, but tell me a little bit about what you, what your vision for this wine is.

Alice Tétienne (16:00.974)

The vision is from 1880. You remember in 1880, the fourth generation of the Henriot family got married with a girl who was a grower. This girl was named Marie Marguet and she had a vineyard located in Côte-des-Blanc, planted in Chardonnay in three different crus. Aviz, Le Mesnil-sur-Oger and Chouilly. And it was a big transition for the vineyard of Henriot because

Chardonnay was a new grape variety in the vineyard because Côte de Blanc was a new sector in the vineyard. And the life of Henriot is that we create a champagne when there is a transition of vineyards. This is exactly what we did. We decided to pay tribute to this new vineyard, to this new grape variety, creating a champagne that was Henriot Blanc de Blanc. In 1880, it was named Henriot Blanc Souverain, like the Brut Souverain.

Because it was the same philosophy than Brut Souverain, I mean it's a blend. It's a blend of years, it's a blend of crus, and the objective is to represent the whole vineyards of Henriot, but planted in Chardonnay uniquely. So we have 12 different crus in our vineyard today, so you have 12 different crus in your blends, in your glass. This is a fantastic Blanc de Blancs because I think there is not just

one profile of Chardonnay. Sometimes we have the question, do you think it's more Chardonnay or Dan? You have a Chardonnay style. Okay but there is the same quantity of Chardonnay than Terroir, than Place Au Vin. For example we have Terroir in the north of Montaigne de Reims in Chardonnay. For example the village of Trépay. It's a Terroir very rough.

You have a very timid profile, strong profile, but closed. It's with a lot of relief. It's very acid. You have something sizzled in the mouth, but it's quite closed. It doesn't want to deliver everything now. You know, it's okay. I don't want to leave my jacket now. So please let me. And if you compare with another Chardonnay, for example, in the north of Côte-des-Blanc in Chouilly,

Laurie Forster (17:59.235)

Hmm.

Alice Tétienne (18:22.478)

You have a profile more generous with a lot of exoticism, with pineapple, with rum vanilla. It's completely different profiles. Like, okay, come at home. I will open my home and I will receive you. I will offer rum vanilla. It's generous. We are in a warm area. So you feel the personality is very different. With the Blanc de Blanc, we want to make a blend.

Laurie Forster (18:38.979)

Eh.

Alice Tétienne (18:50.146)

that expresses all the characters we have at our disposal in our vineyard. So that's why it's a Blanc de Blanc very interesting because it's complex, because you have the rough profile of Trépay, but you have exotism and generosity of Chouilly. You have the velvet sensation in the mouth of Avnet. You have the laser and the acidity of Aviz. So you have many, many notes difference.

Laurie Forster (19:14.039)

Mm-hmm.

Alice Tétienne (19:18.562)

many personalities of Chardonnay. And that gives birth to a blanc de blancs that is not just mineral. It's not just mineral like we could think for blanc de blancs. No, it's more toasty, it's smoky and mineral. So I like that. And here it's the actual base in the market is 2017.

Laurie Forster (19:35.927)

Right.

Laurie Forster (19:41.069)

Yeah.

Laurie Forster (19:48.355)

Okay, it's a really beautiful, I know a lot of people will say, blanc de blancs is gonna be very muted or lean and just elegant, but there's a lot to this, like you said, with the toastiness and, but also that mineral citrusy thing that you come to expect. So that is just fascinating how you're only using one grape because of so many different plots.

and so many different expressions of Chardonnay, along with the expressions of every single year, I don't even think we could create a computer program to figure that all out. I don't think AI is gonna replace you in the blending room, let's just put it that way. Wonderful, and then I know we spoke when I met you in DC about...

Alice Tétienne (20:34.028)

No, no.

Laurie Forster (20:42.679)

glassware and so this is kind of a traditional flute that a lot of us associate with drinking champagne. But a few years ago, I invested in these glasses after just reading and learning more about the ability to get more aromas and flavor out of champagne in a wider bowl. Is this what you would recommend as far as a champagne glass and why?

Alice Tétienne (20:44.376)

Yes.

Alice Tétienne (21:08.588)

Yeah, in fact, traditionally, that's true, we had different types of wine. We see the coupe like this and then we have the flute like this. And it's really beautiful because it's sort of symbol. And I think it's important to see it in the future because it's symbol and tradition. But to appreciate a wine, a champagne, to be sure to have the nose and the mouth.

It's important to have an adapted glass and with coupe or flute, unfortunately, you lose the aromas. You lose the nose parts of the tasting. It's 50 % of the tasting. It's by the nose. In fact, when you have a flute, for example, everything goes outside. Every aromas go outside. So you cannot keep the aromas to smell. It's not enough to smell everything about the wine.

Laurie Forster (21:55.213)

Right.

Laurie Forster (22:02.273)

Mm-hmm.

Alice Tétienne (22:06.252)

So that's why we prefer to have something more large, but a little bit close to preserve and keep all the aromas. The fact to have something quite large, for me to have a surface of oxygen and the contact between oxygen and wine and to reveal the aromas. But we need to close a little bit at the top of the glass to keep that inside the glass. And then...

There is something important in champagne, it's sparkling, it's the bubbles. The bubbles are very key for the perception of the aromas and the flavors because it's composed by carbonic dioxide first, so in the mouth you have a perception of this carbonic dioxide that gives another dimension to the tasting to compare with still wine. And then when the bubbles go in the surface,

Laurie Forster (22:43.755)

Yes. Yes.

Alice Tétienne (23:03.948)

they expose and they deliver aromas. So it's very important to consider that. the trajectory, the long trajectory of the bubble give the, how can I say that, make the bubble big or small. The fact to have bubble big or small contribute to another.

Laurie Forster (23:16.835)

Mmm.

Alice Tétienne (23:30.674)

as perception in the mouth of the sparkling. So the type of glass you use is very important. If you have a flute, the glass like this flute, you have a very long time of evolution of the bubbles. So you will feel in your mouth big bubbles. If you want to have more finesse, it's important to have less long.

time of evolution of the bubbles, you know. So many, many things are important for the tasting. Indeed, today to appreciate wine is better to have white wine glass. For example, the burgundy wine glass are very adapted for champagne if you don't have the specific champagne glasses. Because champagne glasses now are more like burgundy wine glass, but a little bit more closed at the top.

Laurie Forster (23:58.604)

Mmm.

Alice Tétienne (24:24.714)

and with a certain triangular way at the beginning of the glass.

Laurie Forster (24:36.647)

Mm I thought this one is actually a white wine glass for the Humera that our last wine that we were going to try. That's actually just a white wine glass. These two are the Riedel Extreme Champagne and Rose. So I like them both. Well, great. So I know we have one vintage champagne here in the mix, meaning that all of the grapes are harvested and made from grapes in that one year. And

Alice Tétienne (24:53.121)

Yeah.

Laurie Forster (25:06.295)

You all sent me a 2008. And so, but this is a very special cuvee I know for you there. And I'd love for you to tell people all about it.

Alice Tétienne (25:18.766)

It's another historical cuvee of our collection. Every cuvee is very historical, sorry for that. It was from 1889. The first creation was in 1889 when we went in conquest of new crus. In fact, until 1889, we had only six different crus in our vineyard. The three crus from the foundation of the house, from Apolline , Versi,

Laurie Forster (25:31.363)

We like it.

Alice Tétienne (25:47.788)

Versonnet and May Champagne in Pinot Noir from Montagne de Reims, the three crews that joined the vineyards in 1880 with Abbeys, Menusur Roger and Chouilly in Chardonnay from Côte des Blancs. And in 1889, we went in conquest of New Cru in Montagne de Rince and Côte des Blancs in Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, in Trépay, in Auger and Craman.

But when there was a transition in our vineyard, we contributed to it, creating a champagne. And we decided to contribute to the historical cru. The cru we consider the foundation of the vineyard of Henriot. So those six founding cru, the three of Apolline and the three of 1880. We decided to do it with a recipe. I told you there is no recipe at Henriot, but it's not really true because there is one creation that respects.

recipe this is émerin this guivet i'm sorry in fact we decided to make a blend with equal parts in the blend in terms of volume of each crus to be sure to give the same voice to each crew in the blends but this is a vintage so from a creation to another if the terroir are exactly the same if the recipe is exactly the same the story of the year is different

Laurie Forster (26:50.071)

Right? It's okay.

Alice Tétienne (27:09.454)

So when you do a vertical of this cuvée, it's really amazing because you compare exactly the same thing with the influence of the year. Here you have a mythic vintage in Champagne area that is 2008. 2008 was a very classic year, but classic doesn't want to mean boring. It means classic, expected in Champagne area. And we really want to have this

Laurie Forster (27:32.193)

Yeah.

Alice Tétienne (27:39.18)

weather every year because it gives birth to well balance between expression, charisma and freshness, elegance. You have powerful, you have strong profile, but it's really balanced by a year that close a little bit the big character. So it's well balanced. It's really, really beautiful. And you have exactly the same proportion between

Laurie Forster (28:03.883)

It really is.

Alice Tétienne (28:05.102)

Pinot Noir and Chardonnay because it's three crus in Pinot Noir, three crus in Chardonnay, equal parts in the blend. But you have an influence of the year that gives a certain hierarchy to the profile, you know? It's same for the crus. I think in a way, the crus that are major in terms of expression are like Verzonnais. Verzonnais is about elegance, dentelle, finesse.

And you feel Ménice Roger that is more about shining. You can feel Havistou that is about laser freshness. And I think in the second time you can feel the others. Maïchampagne is very strong character. It's like a rugby man. I think he is more timid now. And then Versi, it's more the structure like a...

the foundation of building, you know, it's very solid. I think it's in a second time. We feel it's solid, but more by charisma and foundation of a building. And Shuyi that is about exoticism, pineapple, velvet sensation in the mouth, same. I think it's more timid today. But with the aging sometimes, there is...

like a reorganization of the hierarchy between the crew in terms of expressions. So let's see in 10 years maybe.

Laurie Forster (29:38.347)

Yeah, and you did age this, did I see for 10 years at least, before release, correct?

Alice Tétienne (29:45.166)

Yes, in fact it was created in 2009 because the harvest was in 2008, we did the blend and the bottling in 2009. So it was on yeast until three years ago, two years ago. So it depends on the date of disgorgement, but we always disgorge the bottle at least one year before the tasting.

Laurie Forster (30:09.207)

Wow.

Alice Tétienne (30:14.414)

And now this bottle you have was discussed two years ago. So you see it was on years between 2009 to 2022. So it's a very long aging. We need time. In fact, we do tasting very often of the bottles we have in the cellar. And we follow the wine, we listen to the wines. And when we feel, it begin to say, hello, we follow the wine more often.

maybe we will taste the wine every six months before it was every year. So every six months we taste it and when you say hello with more noise you know we taste it every three months and when it's more and more every month and when we consider it's ready we disgorge it. After disgorgement we taste every month and when we consider it's well balanced because disgorgement is the moment where

Laurie Forster (30:45.725)

Hey.

Laurie Forster (30:55.971)

When it's ready.

Alice Tétienne (31:11.662)

we switch out the yeast that are in the bottle and we do the dosage. This step is very short, it's the end of the process, it's just a few seconds in the life of the bottle, but the fact to open a bottle that was on yeast during many years, it's quite violent for the wine because it takes a breath, it meets the oxygen for the first time and it needs time to be

well balanced after that. You need to sleep a little bit to be organized and balanced. So that's why we always try to have long time of aging after disgorgement, at least one year.

Laurie Forster (31:57.847)

This sounds like a great job because there's a lot of tasting going on every six months, every three months, every month to make sure that it's perfectly ready. This is stunning. And I was holding this up to show just the difference in the color, how much more color this, the vintage seems to have from the blanc de blancs, a little more golden on. And do you believe that's from the aging?

Alice Tétienne (32:00.386)

Yes.

Laurie Forster (32:26.785)

you know, because this is such an aged wine or is there another reason do you feel?

Alice Tétienne (32:33.75)

In fact, there are many reasons and we cannot give all the answers. There is a part of Maggi that we cannot explain because in general, Chardonnay are more light in color compared with Pinot Noir. Pinot Noir you can have reflect, more dark, more red than Chardonnay that is always white. But it depends on the raw material.

It depends on the age, the aging gives more gold color in general, but sometimes we are very surprised by the color of very old vintages. Sometimes the old vintages have very light color. So I don't know. There are many, many elements that can explain that, but of course you have more chance to have gold color with time and darker color with time. Yeah.

Laurie Forster (33:06.691)

Mm-hmm.

Laurie Forster (33:31.597)

Mm-hmm.

Alice Tétienne (33:33.672)

there is a part of magic of that. Fortunately, we don't have the answer for everything.

Laurie Forster (33:35.331)

And these are all three beautiful. One of the things, I love the magic.

Alice Tétienne (33:43.689)

Yeah.

Laurie Forster (33:45.859)

And I love that this vintage comes in a gift box. So I know we're in the holidays time. Certainly all of these are great to celebrate holidays or New Year's, but the vintage, the Humira is such a great gift. And the presentation is just wonderful. This is truly, if you are celebrating something amazing or just celebrating every day, this wine is.

Definitely the finale. One last question, because I know we've taken a lot of your time already, but this is so fascinating. So you had touched on a little bit in the tasting I attended about climate change and how that is. Just what are your thoughts on how that's affecting champagne making and anything you might be doing differently now that you're noticing the effects?

Alice Tétienne (34:37.154)

The climate change is really the biggest challenge we have now because we need to work to reduce our impact on the environment in order to reduce the climate change. And we need to adapt ourselves to the climate change that is really, really strange. And today we have more extremes in terms of weather in the vineyard. We have a higher temperature. We have more extremes for example, 2024.

We had rain and rain and rain. We had no sun. We had record of rain, of humidity. We had record of low quantity of sun. So, and sometimes we have warm and dry weather all the year with record of high temperature. So more extremes in general. That means every year it's a new white paper and we need to reinvent our viticulture. I think the key is to be more present in the vineyard.

to observe a lot. You mentioned the AI for the wine and said the AI will not do the blend for us. That's true. But the AI is very, very good to have indicators to make more analysis on our vineyard. And at Henriot, we use a lot the AI because it permit to have very precise analysis to be and help.

Laurie Forster (35:43.586)

Mm-hmm.

Alice Tétienne (36:03.79)

for our choices of viticulture because now we see that we need to take more priority. Because we want to be better for the environment, for example, today in the Vineyard of Orio, we are in organic viticulture. So that means no synthesis product. That means we need to go more often in the vineyards. So for the carbon impact, we need to find solutions because it's not better.

To be better in terms of carbon impact, we need to do priority. If the vineyard doesn't need treatment, work of soil, et cetera, we don't do it. And thanks to the AI, we arrived to have cartography of different indicators that permit to take the good decision and to not go in the vineyard if it's not necessary for many things, for the quantity of organic material.

for the treatment, for the work on the soil, if we need to cut the grass or not, to compare with the vigor of the vineyard, et cetera. So we do many things like that. And this is part of a project that we created in 2020. When I joined the house, we decided to create a project, a big project about quality, environment, and climate change, of course. And we have this project that is composed by three pillars.

The first is about the knowledge about the vineyard and our terroir. So we do lot of analysis with AI and with just vision and laboratory, cetera. lot of analysis on soil, hydric statue, potential of photosynthesis, pressure of diseases, et cetera. To answer to the second pillar that is about precise viticulture, you know that we need to have the same quantity of itinerary of viticulture than plot of mine.

And the third pillar is about our contribution on the perinitio of the vineyard. So we do many, positive action in order to be better with the environment, to be better and to be positive. I mean, we work on the biodiversity. We try to have more electric material in our vineyards. We use AI. We are in organic viticulture. We are in HVE. We are in VDC. So many things we do and we do it.

Alice Tétienne (38:30.84)

collectively, course. Everything we do, we don't do it individually. We always share with the Appalachian, with the CIBC, the Champagne Comité, with the growers in the ReNerd, with the other houses, because we need to be collective. Because it's for everybody, we do it.

Laurie Forster (38:35.692)

Nice.

Laurie Forster (38:54.111)

Lovely. Awesome. Well, it sounds like between blending and really staving off, you know, climate change and dealing with all that, you have your hands full there in Champagne. But this has been so amazingly informative. Elise, thank you so much for joining us and sharing these three wines, which I know people will be able to find here all over the U.S. for the holidays and for New Year's or just any day because Champagne

is great any day. It doesn't have to be the holidays, at least in my opinion, and I think you probably agree. So thank you so much for coming on the show. So we should just say probably cheers.

Alice Tétienne (39:30.062)

Thank you very much, it was a big pleasure. Thank you so much. Yeah, cheers! Many bubbles for the end of the year. Cheers, thank you.

Laurie Forster (39:37.879)

Thank you so much.

I love it. Thank you.