He knew the company under the old Gosset ownership. Odilon de Varine-Bohan, who recently joined the House, is both the Executive Director and an oenologist. His family has been in Champagne for several hundred years.

Before coming here he was chef des caves with the House of Deutz. These latter two work very closely and harmoniously together. Finally, Nathalie Dufour, who arrived there in 1994, is in charge of Administration and Public Relations for the Export Market.

 

VINEYARDS
For Gosset this is anecdotal. They have just 50 ares (1/2 hectare) of vineyards. This does not mean however that we cannot talk about vineyards. This small plot happens to be in Cramant and is rated Grand Cru 100%. Naturally, herefore, it is planted with Chardonnay.This may just be the place to mention that in Champagne, as a whole, not now talking specifically about Gosset, there are four main pruning systems.

1. The “Cordon Royat” system, principally used for the Pinot Noir.

 

2. The “Chablis” system, principally used for Chardonnay.

3. The “Vallée de la Marne” system. This is a sort of « Double Guyot » system with a « Chablis » system influence.

4. The classical “Guyot” system, used principally in the Marne, for the Pinot Meunier grape.Jean Pierre Mareignier carefully drew my attention to the vital importance of the relationship, especially in the case of Gosset with almost no vineyards, between the Champagne House and the growers who provide their grapes.

 

Gosset have worked with the same families, in many cases, for many generations.These “FAMILY” relationships are highly prized and carefully nurtured. All sorts and kinds of contracts exist, each one individually negotiated, but the most common is the four year contract.

Gosset works with no less than 46 villages and 200 different growers, all of them less than 20 miles from Aÿ, where Gosset and their cellars are based. This vast range lends complexity to the “assemblage”, a prime factor in fine Champagne.

 

One of the principal aims and objects of the Gosset winemaking team is to use this great diversity of Terroir and of provenances to produce a fine wine, of great complexity, but which appears straightforward on the final palate.

The final whole must be greater than the sum of its parts. Jean Pierre says “To reveal the very best of the Grands Crus and the Premiers Crus, it helps to blend in small touches of lesser Crus that form a perfect marriage with them.

 

CHAMPAGNE according to Gosset
Once the grapes have been pressed and the must débourbé (cold-settled or racked-off its first heavy deposit), it is brought to the Gosset premises, here in Aÿ, whether it is the juice from their own 1/2 hectare or the multitudinous juices from their numerous suppliers.

On arrival it is racked-off its deposit again (cold settled) and put into enamel lined or stainless steel vats. Each lot is kept separate. Here the fermentation takes place. Gosset uses selected Champagne yeasts.

These are cultured here in Champagne, sent to Canada to be lyophilised and returned to Champagne for use. Chez Gosset, fermentation is done at a temperature of 16-18°C. Above all it must be SLOW. After fermentation the wine is racked off and then left quietly on its clean lees for stabilisation. If, upon tasting, it is considered advisable or beneficial, then a little lees stirring might be done.

Gosset is one of the relatively few Houses in Champagne to avoid malo-lactic fermentation. The added freshness that so-doing gives to the wine is part of the Gosset style. It also helps the wine to age longer.Gosset uses almost no oak or wood of any kind. However, a few Cuvées spend a short time in 230 litre pièces (barrels) before bottling. This Jean-Pierre describes as “one of Gosset’s little touches”.

Apart from the fact that most Champagne Houses wish the flavour of the grapes to be natural and untouched by other flavours and aromas such as oak, Champagne does not have sufficient polyphenols to require oak.

This is because the grapes are rarely picked entirely ripe, since a good measure of acidity is essential for fine Champagne. Because of low polyphenol content the wine is prone to oxidation. Bubbles are a protection against this and also prolong the life of the wine.

From December onwards Gosset starts serious tastings leading up to the assemblage or “blending”.

Nothing is cast in iron, nothing is programmed, and all is done on tasting! “Take your time” says Jean Pierre, “the art is to bring out the very best that each Cuvée has to offer”.

Once the “assemblage” is finally agreed upon and completed, the tirage or “bottling” is done. Gosset likes to do this before the sap rises in the spring. They find that the team taste best in February-March, and they

like to bottle in March if they can.
However it must be noted that all wines do not take the same length of time to marry and settle after the blending, so it might be later.At bottling, the liqueur de tirage is added to create the second fermentation in bottle. This is a mixture of yeasts, cane sugar and the wine being bottled.

After bottling the wine is taken down to the basse cave, the deepest cellars. Here at Gosset, this is 17 metres below ground level, and it is here that the magnificent prise de mousse or “bubble creation” takes place.Interestingly, and once again nothing to do with Gosset, scientists have ascertained that at 17-18 metres below ground level the temperature remains stable the year round, although of course it will be a different temperature in different parts of the globe.

The wine now rests quietly with the bottles horizontal. Classically, and still so chez Gosset, they are stacked “sur lattes” – on strips of wood to keep the piles of bottles stable. Some houses now stack on palettes for easy movement.

 

They used to do an operation called “poignetage”. This consisted in shaking the bottles a bit to avoid the accumulating sediment from sticking too much to the inside of the bottle.

Today, Gosset do not do this as additives are used which make the yeasts much less sticky. In fact very few, if any, Houses still do “poignetage”.One of the crucial factors in the making of great Champagne, like the assemblage, is the length of time of ageing. Each House has to decide how long to age each of its wines.

 

How long will the wine stay down here in the “basse cave” Lees are reductive, they eat oxygen, so the time on the lees helps to prolong the life of a Champagne and also slows its evolution.
During this period the wine is tasted regularly, to decide how long this process is to be allowed to continue and when the moment has arrived for its preparation for “dégorgement”.

 

When the decision has been taken, the bottles are moved to the upper levels of the cellars. Here they used to be put on “pupitres” – the famous wooden racks with the holes cut in them.

They were then “riddled (remuage) by specialists. Riddling consists of fractionally turning the bottles, and tilting them more and more onto their corks, until they are standing upside down.

At Gosset this process has been replaced by machines called “gyro palettes”, which automatically shake, turn and verticalise the bottles, except for the large format bottles (Magnums, Jeroboams and Mathusalems, which still go onto pupitres (riddling-racks).

 

It takes seven days to have the bottles riddled and standing on their corks with the gyro palettes and one month by hand riddling.

 

As well as moving the sediment neatly onto the cork in the neck of the bottle, riddling also reduces the surface area of the sediment (mainly lees lying the length of the side of the bottle when horizontal) in contact with the wine and thus reduces the danger of reduction.

 

As always, chez Gosset, the timing of these operations is decided by tasting, and chemical analysis is for confirmation and security.Once the Champagne has been verticalised, and the little block of sediment is sitting neatly on the corks (sur pointe), it can be kept like this for a long time if so desired.

Just as in all other Houses, just before the process of “dégorgement” – “uncorking”, the bottles pass, cork downwards, through a tank of freezing solution, which solidifies the chunk of sediment in the neck of the bottle on the cork.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A machine then uncorks the bottle, the chunks of frozen sediment are forced out and either thrown away or collected and sent to the mustard factories. Gosset throw them away.

The bottle is then IMMEDIATELY recorked with its final cork, after dosing the wine with an EXTREMELY carefully judged and measured dose of “liqueur”.

 

We talk more about the liqueur elsewhere, but it is another of the vital stages in producing a fine Champagne. Gosset uses cane sugar exclusively, and the dose is meticulously calculated to suit exactly each and every lot of wine.

 

 

It must create and form the perfect marriage with the wine, and extensive tests are carried out before deciding on the exact dosage. This is done by tasting the wine without any addition of liqueur and the wine with the addition of varying doses of the liqueur, which is made up of a mixture of the wine being bottled and the decided upon quantity of sugar.

 

When the bottle is uncorked, the wine inside undergoes a 500 millivolt discharge as the pressure of the gas is released. Large format bottles are still uncorked by hand – a delicate and skilled operation that used to have to be done to each and every bottle.

Creating machinery to mechanically handle just a few large format bottles would be totally uneconomical.At Gosset, the wine then goes back into the cellars for 6-9 months, to marry and settle, before being labelled and prepared for shipment. Such a shock as that described above requires a little recovery time!!Gosset describes their entire Champagne making process above as “Haute Couture” – careful and personalised attention to each lot and every bottle of Champagne.

 

IMPROVEMENTS
Since the 1993 purchase of Gosset by the Cointreau Family, more then half a million Euros has been

invested in improving and modernising the vat room and the beautiful cellars.

 

RANGE OF WINES
- GOSSET BRUT EXCELLENCE
- GOSSET GRANDE RÉSERVE
- GOSSET GRAND ROSÉ
- GOSSET GRAND MILLÉSIME
- GOSSET CELEBRIS MILLÉSIME
- GOSSET CELEBRIS ROSÉ MILLÉSIME