How would we modify the proportion of white and black grapes that go to make our wine, when we are confident that we have already made the correct choice How could we improve our vintages and our ''Special Cuvee wines which are the toast of our savoir-faire?

MADAME LILY BOLLINGER

A great Champagne has always been dependent on the delicate art of blending great growths, or crus. This art is the result of long experience coupled with a precise vision of the ultimate Champagne that the producer wishes to create. It is a vision that must be translated to the other side of the creation of the bubbles. It is, a vision that must reach beyond the second fermentation, a vision that imagines a wine to be mature and ready for enjoyment. The interplay of characteristics and contrasts, of each base wine must not only serve as a catalyst for the other components but must lead to the envisioned end product. This is a task that demands consummate ability, and a Bollinger nose.

It is this exacting selection that endows a Champagne with its house style and, therefore, the personality that best expresses the marque, or brand of Champagne.

Family

At Bollinger, this exacting role has passed on from Madame Bollinger to her nephews, first, Claude d'Hautefeuille and, today, Christian Bizot, Heirs of the Bollinger savoir faire, who are dedicated to preserving and sustaining this very individual style of Champagne. The House of Bollinger was created, in 1829, in Ay, through the partnership of two eminent men, Admiral Athanase-Louis-Emmanuel, the Count of Villermont, who owned vines on the Montagne de Reims, and Jacques-Joseph-Placide Bollinger, his son-in-law. When Jacques Bollinger, great-grandson of the founder, took over in 1918, the firm was already renowned as the producer of world-class Champagnes and the Bollinger style had many followers in France as well as abroad.

Lily Bollinger

Dying prematurely in 1941, Jacques bequeathed the flourishing business to his wife Lily. In a world of men, Lily Bollinger accepted the challenge, tirelessly touring the Bollinger vineyards on her bicycle, overseeing every stage of viticulture and winemaking as well as and presiding over the international fortunes of the house. Even today, her image is very much alive in Champagne. At Bollinger, she remains a figure-head and guiding light as well as a powerful inspiration in Bollinger's insistence on the independence that allows them to produce one of the greatest wines of Champagne.

The Bollinger story is not the saga of a family whose traditions are engraved in stone ; but one of a family who has adhered to the goal of producing a unique style of Champagnes that has led each generation to relay the Bollinger ethic to the next. This rare preservation of a unique heritage has permitted the House to continue to own vineyards in the finest crus and to maintain the financial independence that allows Bollinger to follow its own vision. It is a philosophy that gives the House of Bollinger a great deal of flexibility, as well as the liberty of allowing it to refuse to sacrifice its vision of what a great Champagne should be for sake of volume.

In Champagne, everyone understand eternal vigilance are essential ingredients for the production of great wine.

Bollinger has become a reassuring institution, its wines represent an exacting but delicate blend of terrior, traditional values and talent. And knowing that it is always possible to taste a bottle of the inimitably styled Bollinger remains a unique pleasure.

The House of Bollinger owns 144 hectares in the finest crus in the heart of the Champagne region. These vineyards provide 70 percent of the House's grape needs and accord its wines consistency, along with a very specific character. Champagne is a blended wine, blended not only from red and white grapes but also from different vineyard areas. It is this blending that gives the wines their balance, their richness, and their aptitude for ageing. The Pinot Noir grape - the foundation of the Bollinger style - is cultivated in Ay, Bouzy, Louvois, Tauxieres and Verzenay; the chardonnay is grown in Bisseuil, Cuis, Mancy, Grauves and Cramant ; and the Pinot Meunier in Champvoisy.
Bollinger's assemblages, that is the blends, are produced with grapes from an average of 25 to 30 crus from the Department of the Marne, of which a minimum of 24 are classed growths, 10 grand cru and 14 premiers crus. The House of Bollinger not content to rest simply on its demands for the finest grapes, but uses only the cuvee that is, the first pressing of each vintage - and sells off the tailles, the second pressing to other champagne producers.

Techniques

In those years that are exceptional, all the musts are fermented in barrels. In average years, or those where grapes do not reach ideal maturity, they can be fermented either in barrels or in stainless steel vats. When confronted with a choice between these two extremes, Bollinger relies on its strongest assets : the Bollinger nose.

Barrels

Bollinger is one of a few Houses that uses oak casks for the fermentation of its musts. This demanding method is labour intensive and requires much more attention and care than stainless steel fermentation. But fermentation in these small oak barrels confers a remarkable style to the wine. In small oak barrels, not only can the quantities of each individual cru be completely controlled, but the exchange between the wine and its surrounding atmosphere is significantly superior. The use of excellent quality, well maintained wood enhances the roundness and aromatic complexity of the wines. On the other hand, to reduce excess acidity and to balance lack of maturity in certain musts, Bollinger vinifies these in stainless steel. And so, the malolactic fermentation, that is, the transformation from strong to soft acids, is also undertaken in vats so that this process can be more completely controlled.

All of Bollinger's reserve and vintage wines are fermented in small oak barrels, while the Special Cuvee, non-vintage wine, can be vinified in stainless steel vats or in oak barrels, depending exclusively on the characteristics of each year's musts.

Cooper

The House of Bollinger, which still employs a full-time cooper, meticulously repairs and maintains over 4,000 oak barrels. The small oak barrels - a maximum of 200 litres - must age before use because their purpose is to impart a particular style to the wine, without imparting any of the barrels' flavours.

Cellars

Originally excavated by Count de Villermo Jacques Bollinger's father-in-law, the Bollinger cellars have been expanded since then and, today, include five kilometers of cellars that contain almost eight million bottles of five and six-year-old stocks of ageing Champagne.

Magnums

Bollinger ages its reserve wines in magnums. After each harvest, the house selects the most characteristic musts of the year, ferments them in barrels, then racks them into magnum bottles for ageing, ensuring that they develop only a light prise de mousse. This is a demanding procedure but one that is indispensable in maintaining the integrity of the intrinsic flavors of each cru. Thus, Bollinger disposes of a veritable treasure trove, a vinous library from which the House can draw as necessary.

Reserve Wines

The reserve wines are each aged individually, cru by cru and year by year. This allows Bollinger to precisely select, by cru and year, the five to ten percent reserve wine that they will add to the assemblage. The unique balance of Special Cuvee is the result of the delicate art of blending reserve wines with wines of the year that have been fermented in oak barrel or cuve, or a combination of both. This assemblage represents the perfect expression of the Bollinger Style.

Age Vintage Wines

Bollinger creates vintage-dated Champagnes only in the finest years. These are selected immediately following the harvest, and are then vinified in oak barrel for the first six months of their existence, prior to ageing in bottle, magnum or jeroboam, in the cellars, under cork closures. Because Bollinger Champagnes are aged a long time, it is important to protect them from oxidation. After numerous experiments and trials, the House of Bollinger has chosen to age all of its vintage wines under cork. Interestingly, their trials demonstrated that the oxidation of a wine under cork or metal crown cap was the same for wines aged in bottle between three to four years, however, after five or six years they noted marked differences. Oxidation, then was less pronounced under cork than metal caps, thus allowing the qualities of the wine to fully develop, under the best conditions.