Champalou: Progress & Expansion
Catherine and Didier Champalou built upon the successes of these years with an expansion of the domaine, acquiring more plots of vines. As they did so they began to outgrow the rather bijou facilities that they had started with in Le Grand Ormeau. A small troglodytic cellar, one hewn directly from the limestone rock, is fine when you have just half a hectare to work, but with an expanding domaine they needed more space. This was accentuated by the fact that as well as a small range of still wines they were also producing their own sparkling wine, undertaking every stage in the process themselves; having 20% of your harvest lying around sur lattes for a year or two, before disgorgement and release, takes up a lot of space.
One solution to this problem would perhaps have been to expand the cellars; this is the approach the Foreau family took over at Domaine du Clos Naudin. Philippe’s cellar has grown in several phases, the first section opened up by grandfather Armand, the next by father André, before Philippe himself undertook some expansion after taking the domaine in hand. Even so, such spaces tend to be utilised for long-term storage of bottles (for which they are ideal), and not as a winemaking space. For Catherine and Didier, expansion in this manner wasn’t their preferred option; they needed a larger facility that could accommodate a press and larger fermentation vats, not just a little gallery for the storage of more bottles. And they also had some concerns about the safety of their ancient cellars, which were damp and crumbling. In such conditions, unsurprisingly the idea of chipping away at the rock-face to make more room was not an appealing one.
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