Our Visit to Langlois

Visit to Langlois
producer of our Cremant de Loire wines

During her holiday in France, Susie and her family were warmly welcomed by Langlois and enjoyed a tour of the winery & caves along with an informative tasting. It was great to gain more insight into this producer and their Cremant de Loire wines which have a loyal following with you, our customers. 

• Founded by Edouard Langlois & Jeanne Chateau in 1912 (hence the former name Langlois-Chateau - surprisingly not after a big house!)
• Impressive and beautiful site in Saumur, on the banks of the Loire - originally capitalising on the availability of the caves dug out in the Middle Ages, and the river for transport.
• Acquired by the Bollinger family in 1973, continuing the legacy of producing quality Champagne method wines. 
• 50 ha of vines on site - some very old, all certified sustainable and either already organic or in organic conversion. The grapes are harvested by hand into small boxes to reduce crushing. 
• Modern winery with stainless steel vats - the juice from each field/terroir is kept separate to enable tasting and blending not only of the varieties but also terroir. 
• State of the art presses take 3 hours to very lightly squeeze the first press of juice from the grapes - the cuvée - which is used for the Langlois Cremant de Loire wines. 
• It was quiet at the start of August, with most of the team of 40 having a break before the harvest begins - which will be later than usual this year. 
• It was clear how much extra work is created in the 'traditional Champagne method' using secondary fermentation in the bottle.
• Sugar and yeast are added for the secondary fermentation (termed 'on the lees') and it's this which produces the famous fine bubbles. 
• After 2 years in the caves, the bottles are disgorged - the caps and the lees - now a solid sediment in the neck of the bottle - are removed, and the bottles are sealed with the cork. 
• In times past the caves would have been a hive of activity with hundreds of workers. In advance of disgorging , the bottles (upside down on a wooden rack or 'pupitre') would have been turned by hand - a quarter turn a day for 3 weeks. This was called riddling - and we were told a fast riddler could turn 5000 bottles an hour using both hands!
• During disgorging, before modern techniques, a small amount of wine was often lost from the bottle - which is why the long foil wrap on the neck was adopted - to conceal the varying wine levels. 
• There are over 4km of cave tunnels housing 2 million maturing bottles, stacked on wooden slats (which look a little precarious to us!). The caves were originally created when the chalky stone was mined for the building of Chateau Saumur. The temperature and humidity are ideal for wine ageing.