Took an offer from Laurent the VP of Sales and Marketing to take a private tour, tasting and lunch up at Schramsberg today with Sarah. Beautiful property and history with an amazing 600,000 sq ft of hand dug caves. Schramsberg is 100% Methode Champenois from Pinot Noir and Chardonnay (except for the Cremant Demi Sec) with a healthy dose of barrel fermentations (3-4 year old wood). 100% hand riddled, (no gyropalette here) so the pupitre racks were out in force in the caves as well as the massive stacks of bottles resting after tirage. A minimum of 36 months on the lees (which if you don't know is the AC law for vintage Champagne, NV is 15 months) for all wines.
Near the entrance of the caves
Long corridor after corridor of stacked bottles
Pupitre racks and the notated charts of all the numerous turns of the bottle to encourage the yeast into the crown cap
Blanc des Blanc. The closest stack is row 41. This massive stack goes for 40 more rows back from here (The cave is 100 yds from this point, filled!!)
Rose....
The very modern disgorgment, dosage, cleaning and labeling lines.
J. Schram, hand labeled, foiled and upc'ed due to bottle size.
Barrel and tank fermentation
The beautiful road to lunch
Tasted:
2005 Blanc des Blanc
2005 Blanc des Noirs
2005 Rose
2001 Reserve
2001 J. Schram
2005 Cremant Demi- Sec
2005 J. Davies Cabernet Sauvignon
Gifted a '01 J. Schram, '05 Rose and '04 Cremant for later.
The cap to a great day was an invitation to a 30 year vertical tasting in a few weeks that I am really looking forward to!!