BLENDING 

Assemblage is the art of blending wines from different grapes, vineyards and vintages, so as to produce a wine that is greater than the sum of its parts. The aim of the cellar master or winegrower who orchestrates the blend is a unique Champagne that, vintage after vintage, expresses and perpetuates the particular vision and style of each individual producer.

Blends may combine wines from a whole range of vineyards, bringing together different vintages and different varietals – a highly creative exercise that relies entirely on the winemaker’s sensory memory and experience of terroir and tasting. The real challenge is to predict the development of a wine over time, bearing in mind the decisive influence of second fermentation and maturation on lees following blending.

The winemaker must first decide what type of wine to create, whether a non-vintage wine (using reserve wines); a vintage wine that captures the unique style of an exceptional year; blended rosé (containing a proportion of red still wine from Champagne); blanc de blancs (made only from white-skinned grapes); blanc de noirs (made only from black-skinned grapes); or single-vineyard Champagne (from a single village).

Once blending is complete, the wine must be stabilized in preparation for bottling (particularly important for sparkling wines). This is done by chilling, which may be prolonged (-4°C for a week), short (meanwhile stirring the wines and inducing crystallization) or continuous. The aim of stabilisation is to induce crystallisation of tartaric salts then eliminate them, so preventing crystal formation in the bottled wine. Stabilisation is followed by renewed clarification.