Recoltant-Manipulant

[mrdutton]

With the gracious help of Tom Stevenson, I've answered my own question except for the part about TN's.

Tom sent me the fax number for Giles Tournant, I sent him a fax. His wife sent me an e-mail and gave me their web site, which has pages both in French and English:

http://perso.club-internet.fr/tournant/

Here are some notes from the site:

Our History:

Right in the heart of the Marne Valley, 10km to the south of EPERNAY, is situated the village of VILLERS SOUS CHATILLON. Already for 4 generation the Lemaire family has cultivrd the three " cépages champenois " the chardonnay, the pinot noir and the pinot meunier.

In 1966, the brand " Cuvée Trianon " appeared and became The Champagne LEMAIRE's prestigious vintage.

As 1975, Gilles TOURNANT and his wife, Brigitte LEMAIRE, have driven the firm in a politic of quality by investing in a modern winery while keeping the traditional know-how, inherited by the family.

At the moment, our domain comprises ten hectares situated on the sunny side of the Marne Valley : Cumières, Hautvillers, Reuil, Binson-Orguigny, and Leuvrigny.

Our Quality:

The end quality that we are proposing to you starts from the cultivation of the vines with a careful selection of the graps during the " vendage ", a traditionnal pressing with an absence of malo-lactic fermentation.

The bottle lie for four years in our cellars before they come in the shops. Our
" millésimes " (vintages) are stored in oak barrels.

At the moment we produce 75.000 bottles a year, which could be increased to 90.000 in the future.

Since three years, The Champagne RC LEMAIRE have chosen to follow a politic of respect of environnement by substituting the insecticide and acaricides, usually used in Champagne country, with more ecological methods.

Here is the e-mail the owner's wife Brigitte LEMAIRE sent to me:

The e-Mail:

Thank you for your fax.
we give you our site web where you can visit us and have all the informations about our house and differents Champagne.
perso.club-internet.fr/tournant/

We are a little family House and all our vineyard is situated near Epernay which is the heart of Champagne.

At the présent time we just begin to export in USA for a little quantity with Williamson-Mallet in Virginia.


My goodness. When I post my TN's, be they what they may be, I will be among the first folks to have tasted this product in the United States. I find all of this very interesting.

I am also glad that I kept searching the wine shop shelves for the RM label!!

This is one of the small houses that potentially produce fine champagne from their own grapes with great care and loving attention. This one is among those for which folks like Wille and Roberto tell us to be on the look-out.

Hopefully the product will be quite good. The Brut Select Reserve is 100% pinot meunier.

My bottle of R. C. LEMAIRE is sitting right next to my bottle of 1989 KRUG Brut. [img]http://www.wines.com/ubb2/biggrin.gif[/img]



[This message has been edited by mrdutton (edited 12-07-2000).]