HARVEST: 2004 is a very good year for champagne. Lara Marlowe joins an eclectic bunch of grape-pickers in the midst of the harvest
The old houses of Sacy huddle up around the 12th-century church, leaving as much room as possible for the vineyards. In early October, the beginning of the champagne harvest, the village is a beehive. Tractors laden with crates ply the narrow streets. Range Rovers and vans ferry labourers wearing rubber boots and kitchen gloves, from one vineyard to another, because wine-growers rarely own contiguous parcels of land. There is fierce competition among the region's 4,869 growers for every plot that comes up for sale; one hectare of champagne vineyard now sells for € 1.5 million.
For the chalky earth of Champagne is precious. No other wine has the right to use the name. In part through the efforts of a noble monk named Dom Pérignon in the 17th century, the region perfected the art of blending and fermenting three kinds of grapes to make a clear wine with lasting bubbles. Initially prized by the courts of Europe, champagne gradually became an accessible, if expensive, symbol of celebration for the common man.
Festive is the word that comes to mind when I step into a refectory-like room in the heart of Sacy village. I've been invited by Philippe and Francine Mobillion, champagne-makers. "It's important to treat your employees well," Philippe says, gesturing to tables laden with salad, poached cod with saffron rice, and later cheese platters, chocolate mousse and a sugary pastry called tarte Ardennaise.
"It's no small feat to prepare lunch for 40 people every day," says Simone Joseph (70). After a long career testing ovens for the Arthur Martin appliance company, Joseph became the Mobillions' cook for the duration of the annual harvest 14 years ago, bringing along her best friend Jacqueline Moneta to assist her.Open wine bottles stand at regular intervals down the tables in the dining hall, so that every labourer can easily reach one. Judging from the laughter, a fair amount has been consumed.
The Mobillions were among the last to stop lodging grape-pickers, four years ago. It is testimony to the quality of Simone's cooking that three-quarters of the temporary work force return every year for the 10-day harvest. Among them are eight members of the Wuilmet family from Reims, 10 kilometres away. They include a hospital technician, the head of a driving school, a car factory worker and a supermarket cashier.
This year, the Mobillions' grape-pickers range in age from 21 to 58 and come from as far away as Siberia and Lebanon. Some are newly-graduated students who want to earn pocket money before looking for more permanent employment. One is an art historian, another a truck driver. The ANPE unemployment agency in Reims had promised to send 12 labourers this year, but only two showed up. Most are recruited by word of mouth.
It is hard work, especially the first few days when hands blister and backs ache. The grape-pickers are in the vineyards from 7.45 until 11.45 every morning, and another four hours in the afternoon, following a two-hour lunch break.
"They're far less efficient in the afternoon," Philippe Mobillion says with a smile. The job pays €7.61 per hour, with a 50 per cent bonus on Sundays and 25 per cent extra for every hour beyond France's mandatory 35-hour working week. The copious gourmet lunch, and champagne to drink at the end of the day, are the main perks.
The grape-pickers stand or sit at picnic tables in the garden to take their coffee. Why do they sign up for the harvest? Answers are shouted in hilarious disorder: "To drink!" "We eat well!" "We laugh well!" "There's lots of sex!"
The last explanation is offered by a giggling redhead. Romance seems to be an integral part of the champagne harvest. Philippe Mobillion has seen at least six marriages. "I often sense a love affair about to occur before my wife does," he boasts. He courted Francine more than three decades ago, when she was cooking for her brother's grape-pickers in the next village.
In his father's day, Mobillion continues, a foreman slept on the landing between the men's and women's dormitories. Nonetheless, there were often babies born nine months later. The harvest is such a notorious way of meeting members of the opposite sex that a gang of bank robbers got themselves hired a few years ago. "They came to meet girls," Mobillion explains. "They had a shiny new Peugeot and big wads of banknotes. We identified them in the mug-shots, and the gendarmes came to get them."
As a recent graduate in psychology, Julie Gayet is well-placed to analyse the motives of her fellow grape-pickers. "It breaks your usual routine," she says. "People feel a lot closer during the harvest. We know we'll never see each other again. We don't come to cut grapes but to make friends."
Claude Nasser Watterlot, a Lebanese dentist who married a Frenchman, leaves her three-year-old son with a babysitter to work in the vineyards. "It's not really for the money," she says. "It's like doing sport in the fresh air, and the atmosphere is so sympathique that it's worth it."
Philippe Mobillion has been a councillor, deputy mayor or mayor of Sacy, population 400, for most of his adult life. On his father's side, the Mobillions have been champagne-makers for four generations. On his mother's, it goes back so far that he doesn't know when they started. "I did my first harvest at the age of 11," says Mobillion, now 55. "My parents sent a note to my teacher."
Mobillion brings the sensibility of a local leader to his work. "I make a little speech at the beginning of each harvest," he says. "I tell them that we're all from different milieux, that we have different political and religious views, and we have to respect each other. I also tell them that if they find the work too hard, they must come and tell me and we'll part, no hard feelings. Sometimes the young ones can't keep up the pace."
The harvest is better than any reform school. "Every year, we get three or four unfortunate kids who are a bit crazy, or losers. They're happy for the camaraderie, and they discover that work isn't all bad. Simone tries to teach them manners, like taking off their cap at lunch. Sometimes it gets a little out of hand."
Antoine Godard, an unemployed 25-year-old, is there for the money, he tells me. "This is a good outfit," he comments, avoiding gushing comments about friendship. "We all eat together. There are some houses who run the harvest with whistles and make sure you've constantly got your head stuck in the vine."
The Mobillions have only three year-round employees, and 10 during the crucial May to July period. They are at the same time wine-growers, traders and wine-makers - as well as raising sugar beets, wheat and barley. They produce up to 40,000 bottles of champagne, two-thirds of it under their own label, and sell the rest to the big champagne houses Taittinger, Roederer, Moët and Veuve Cliquot. The Mobillions' champagne sells for €12 to €14 a bottle. The big houses sell the same champagne for twice as much. The difference is down to advertising and marketing.
In a good year, Mobillion says, his profit margin is up to 30 per cent. In a bad year, it can sink to 10 per cent. Champagne-growers are at the mercy of frost, thunderstorms, disease and pests. Rosebushes - the botanical equivalent of the canary in the coal mine - delineate the borders between plots, because roses are susceptible to the same diseases as grapevines, especially mildew and oidium.
It has been a good year for the Mobillions. Their second daughter, Élodie, married Olivier Robbe, a petro-chemical engineer, in the village church in July. The seven-course wedding dinner was served with as many varieties of Mobillion champagne. Though both young people have promising careers in Paris, they dream of living in Sacy and taking over the family business.
And unlike 2003 - when 50 per cent of the region's production wasdestroyed in April storms, and the harvest had to be held two months early because of the heat wave - 2004 is an outstanding year for champagne. Bunches of grapes, bursting with sugary juice, hang so heavy on the vines that many have been cut off and discarded to allow the rest to mature more quickly.
On the hillside between Sacy and the neighbouring village of Villedommange, standing in one of their vineyards, Philippe and Francine Mobillion give me a beginner's course in champagne-making. Today, they're harvesting velvety Pinot Meunier grapes, which give champagne its fruitiness. Pinot Meunier, like the larger Pinot Noir grapes which add body and ageing ability, are red-skinned with white flesh. White Chardonnay grapes bring a light freshness. Though each champagne house concocts its own mixture, the ideal balance is about one-third of each.
Because champagne is assembled from three different types of grapes, and often from different harvests, bottles are not dated. An exception is made for the millésime or vintage years. Each champagne-maker decides at the end of the harvest whether he will declare his crop a millésime. If he does, his profits rise, but he must store the wine longer, not mix it with other years.
There are 97 members of the Sacy village champagne co-operative, including the Mobillions. At the end of each day, red plastic crates filled with grapes are delivered to the co-op for testing, weighing and pressing. A woman takes a grape from each delivery and crushes it in a tiny device that tests the potential alcohol level of its sugar. One of the Mobillions' grapes shows 11.2 per cent. "Formidable," declares Philippe. "We're not allowed to use grapes that are lower than 9 per cent." Champagne is 12 per cent alcohol; the added percentage is achieved through fermentation.
The co-op is built over two basements. With its pipes and shiny aluminium containers - some holding 30,000 litres of champagne in the making - it feels like being in the cold belly of an ocean liner. Some 400,000 bottles are stored upside down in the second basement. While the wine is fermenting, each bottle is rotated one quarter of a turn every day for three years. Then the sediment that collects in the neck is "disgorged" through a freezing process, and the cork is inserted.
But that is a long way down the road. In the meantime, the ceremonial of champagne-making runs its annual course. On the last day of the harvest, the Mobillions will host a party called a cochelet because it was once customary to slaughter a pig. The grape-pickers will leave with their last wages and a complimentary bottle of champagne. Until next year.
Champagne Mobillion Père et Fils will hold a free champagne-tasting in Paris from 1 p.m. until 8 p.m. on December 12th at 8, rue St Paul in the Marais. The champagne is served with foie gras from a producer in the Tarn.The Mobillions can be reached by telephone on 00-33-326497549 or by fax on 00-33-326492701.