Valley View Wine Sales

The harvest was better than last year with more quantity and, if handled correctly, better quality. The acid levels, which were very high last year (and I liked a lot) were back to that of a normally high year. Weather played a large part in this harvest as usual. It was rainy through August, which was good, but it was also warm, which was not so good. The really warm weather started in September and continued through October. The issue was botrytis and mold. If the grower, when it got hot and dry, dropped infected fruit and opened the canopy by cutting down leaves, and hand selected at harvest, they got really good, ripe clean, fruit. If they did not drop fruit, or open the canopy or if they used mechanical picking machines, they got fruit with botrytis and that produced high levels of alcohol or very sweet wine. All of our producers did the right thing, in my opinion, and the wines are showing no flaws.

What a beginning to our buying trip! Champagne always is a great way to start a meal, a celebration, or in this case, a buying trip. The short version is that there are only small changes in our Champagne houses: