True champagne is made only in the Champagne region of France, which is an old province about 90 miles northeast of Paris. The vine-growing area is strictly limited by law to an area of about 74,000 acres of which only 44,000 are at present occupied by vineyards, the name given to wine-growing plantations. The area includes 250 villages spread over the highlands of Rheims, the valley of the River Marne, the so-called Slopes of the White Grapes (Cote des Blancs) and parts of the Departments of Aube and Aisne.
The vineyards of that area have a mere 12 inches or so of topsoil over a deep layer of limestone in which the roots of the vines spread. It is this soil to which the champagne grapes owe their particular flavour. Only three types of grapes can be used for champagne, the Pinot Noir, the Pinot Meunier, both black grapes, and the Chardonnay, a white grape. The juice from all three, in equal quantities, goes into every bottle of champagne. The vines bear fruit four years after planting and live about thirty years before needing to be replaced.
The vines are pruned every year according to very precise rules to limit the quantity of fruit and increase the quality. They flower in June, and the grapes are ready for picking to-wards the end of September. Then follows a process called epluchage, which is the sorting and examination of the grapes and the rejection of imperfect ones. According to the condition of the crop, a máximum yield per hectare is fixed each year by law and anything over this is also rejected.
The grapes are pressed and the juice run off quickly so that it will not have time to absorb any red colouring from the skins. Each press takes 8,800 pounds of grapes, producing 596 gallons of juice. Surplus juice may not be labelled champagne.
