South East Vineyards Association Trip Part Three

Continuing the further exploits of the South East Vineyards Association Trip and one member of SEVA whose trip was part sponsored by the International Farmlink, we learn a bit about champagne corks.

This morning's first visit on the SEVA Champagne trip was to Oller, a manufacturer of Champagne corks in Reims. I say manufacturer, but they actually accept the prefabricated pieces (discs and crumbles) from their factory in Spain (where the cork forests are) and stick them together in Reims. This sounds easy, but actually it is a detailed process with many, many steps and quality measures and checks in place. Two discs form the bottom of the cork and the composite layer above is used since it is cheaper. Quite an interesting trip, and refreshing there was no accompanying glass of Champagne!

For the readers of this blog who are from France or have a smattering of French, I think there is an interesting video of some corks and an idea of investment in Reims on YouTube.

The afternoon's visit saw us at Nicolas Feuillatte (the website has links to English, French, German, Italian and Japanese sites), the huge cooperative. The visit was characterised by the wow-factor. Ohhh, what huge tanks you have. Ahhh, what huge and efficient machines you have. Yiiikes, how many bottles per year was that?

In fact Moet's production is twice as big, though Feuillate is the biggest seller in France, showing just how much Moet is marketed for export.

I'm not sure how much I really got from the trip. It was interesting that they don't use pectolytic enzymes to speed settling ("no time to add them", the man said, or somesuch as we whizzed around with our necks craning up at the huge tanks or down over the balcony to watch robots wrangling pallets full of bottles into shape).

Then there was the tasting. I'll be frank it left me a little cold. Perhaps the wines were a little sweeter than my normal taste. Some others in the group left the shop with Champagne in fancy packaging, but I did not.

More next week.
Travel bursaries are available to contribute to the cost of study trips to help your business. If you are interested, please contact the International Farmlink.