User:Duvalleroy

Carol DUVAL LEROY

Femme de Champagne

Belgian by birth, I discovered Champagne when I married, and I had to learn about the king of wines and its region over the years. On the other hand, cooking has been on of my passions since childhood. During my travels abroad, a lot of people have asked me about the ways of combining champagne with food. For many, sparkling wines are associated with parties but not with gastronomy. Yet tasting this wine throughout a meal can prove to be extremely interesting, and although it is a product of blending, champagne offer different flavours depending on the grape varieties, soil and vintage... With this book, I am inviting you to share in my experience, through the various cuvées of my own "Maison". Since I came up against a number of fearsome terms while I was learning about champagne, such as "empyreumatic", "disgorging", and "bidule" (a small plastic cut that fits in the neck of the champagne bottle)..., I have set out to explain the technical aspects of champagne production in a deliberately simple way. This work is intended to be "home made", and in fact it is: all the recipes were produced entirely in my kitchen, photographed locally (and tasted in the process...). I have to say that it was a wonderful experience, and what is more, full of surprises and lessons to be learned. I hope it will also benefit you since we both share an appreciation for this precious wine and a taste for good cooking.

Duval-Leroy: quality comes with time.

The stock of Duval Leroy, stored in the three thousand five hundred meters of its cellars and chalk pits, numbers seventeen million bottles, in other words the equivalent of three years production.

Duval-Leroy: A team.

Eighty five people in the cellars and offices, thirty seven permanent staff in the vineyards, almost five hundred grape pickers at the height of the season. The sales team is made up of fifteen employees and sixty-one representatives. Duval Leroy also brings a female touch to a world that is considered to be rather male dominated: 42% of the employees and two out of three enologists are women. Not a bad result if we consider that in the past, women were forbidden from visiting the cellars because they might have made the wine turn sour!

Duval-Leroy: A very successful company.

In july 1994, Duval Leroy was the first Maison de Champagne to receive ISO 9002 certification. This certified European standards of excellence for all its sites, for business management and processes (from raw material right up to delivery of the finished product).

Business has grown steadily: - 400 000 bottles in 1970 - 2,65 million in 1985 - 3 million in 1986 - 4 million in 1990 - 5 million in 2006

The name of Duval-Leroy is famous throughout the world. With a presence in fifty countries and on five continents, the Maison's champagnes are served in fifteen of the restaurants awarded three stars by Michelin guide. Duval-Leroy exports 60% of its production, most notably to the United Kingdom, Belgium, Germany, and the United States.

After taking part in the world exhibitions in Barcelona in 1888 and Moscow in 1891, the maison opened an office in Great Britain, in the City of London, a leading export market. Today, it has three subsidiaries, in Brussels, London and Hamburg.

The Vertus estate

With five hundred hectares of vines, Vertus (with two thousand five hundred inhabitants) is now the second largest wine-growing district in the Champagne region, after Les Riceys. It has had rather an eventful history. Extremely active during the Middle Ages, it was entirely destroyed once during the Hundred Years' War, then again during during the Second World War. The Duval-Leroy family established its business in the nineteenth century.

The terroir of Champagne

The Champagne region is composed of 324 communes classified under Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée (Appellation of Controlled Origin - A.O.C.) covering 34,400 hectares which represents 8% of all France's A.O.C. regions. It covers 5 departments: the Marne, Aube and Aisne, as well as several communes in the Haute-Marne and the Seine-et-Marne. It is located at an altitude of between 120 and 300 metres. The scale of crus classifies villages and districts from 80 to 100% according to the criteria of exposure, the quality of the subsoil, location of the plots, maturity of the grapes and subtlety of the wines produced. A Grand Cru is classified at 100%, a Premier Cru between 90 and 99%. The Grands Crus are only founr in the regions of the Montagne de Reims and the Côte des Blancs areas, due to their east/south-easterly exposure as well as their chalky, calcareous subsoils. When studying a map of the Champagne region, you can see that the Grands Crus of the Montagne de Reims and the Côte des Blancs are more or less in the line with each other. The climate of the Champagne region is the result of a double influence. It is primarily oceanic, with excellent rainfall (670 mm/year) and relatively mild. It is also continental, characterised by severe frosts in winter, and also during spring. Exposure to sunlight varies from 1600 to 2000 hours per year. Summers are warm (up to 30°C in the shade). The average annual temperature is just over 10°C.

Ordre des Coteaux de Champagne

The Ordre des Coteaux de Champagne is responsible for promoting the range abd diversity of champagne wines. Its activities involve promoting the value of champagnes, the ways in which they are consumed and everything that combines to create their reputation and their image as the ultimate symbol of success and celebration.

Three grape varieties adapted to the soil and the climate

- Chardonnay represents 27% of the Champagne vineyards. This white grape produces a white juice and a colourless pulp. The characteristics of this wine are its subtlely, lightness and elegance. When young, its aromas are made up of floral notes, acacia, hawthorn, almond, green apple, lemon and grapefruit. When mature, it has the scent of brioche, toasted bread and mocha. - Pinot Noir represents 38% of the Champagne vineyards. This black grape with a white juice and colourless pulp yields a robust, structured wine, long on the palate, with red fruits aromas. - Meunier totals 35% of the Champagne vineyards. Its fruit has a black skin and a colourless pulp with white juice. It yields a wine with a well-balanced assemblage, fruity, supple, with a strong bouquet and the aromas of pear and apple.