Harvest 2026: A year unlike any other

Dear friend,

This year has been a year unlike any other in Champagne. According to the Comité Champagne, the vintage will be remembered for its climatic extremes, notably severe spring frosts, premature flowering, and five separate heatwaves.

Champagne is a protected appellation, and its reputation is shared by all its producers. To safeguard it, the Comité Champagne and the INAO, the national body overseeing appellations, monitor ripeness and regulate the earliest picking dates for each area. This year, the rules met an exceptional season. Ripening came so early that the picking dates moved forward across the region. Some vineyards began picking as early as August 6, even before the official harvest began on August 12. Our own harvest began on August 15, and by August 17 picking was widespread across the region. That was around 14 days earlier than in 2025, and the earliest harvest ever recorded in Champagne.

The drought conditions led to smaller grapes and bunches, due to the warm and dry summer. The conditions led to accelerated ripening of the grapes, which led many growers to earlier picking and smaller yields. According to our Chef de Cave Céline Vallois, the vines had a hard year with clear discrepancies between each row. Many of the clusters of our older vines were 30-40 percent smaller than previous years.

“There was no surplus anywhere — the vines gave what the year allowed and not a kilo more.”

 

—Céline Vallois

This was a common theme in the entire region, thankfully the Côte des Blancs region was relatively spared, which avoided the worst of the frost because of the later blooming of the Chardonnay grapes. The chalky soils of the area also acted like a natural sponge through the summer heatwaves, gradually releasing moisture when the top soil was dry, allowing the Chardonnay vines to retain more acidity than other grape varieties across Champagne.

For the vines that survived through the summer, the intense heat instead accelerated the ripening of the grapes. Because of the lack of rain, the smaller grapes became concentrated in sugar, further distinguishing the year as one with high aromatic concentration.

“…the concentration in this fruit is the deepest I have tasted from these parcels.”

— Céline Vallois

As a direct result of the high sugar content, the base wines are already sitting at 11.8% of alcohol by volume (ABV), after just the first fermentation. A rough estimate of 1.5% ABV added by the second fermentation would bring the final Champagne to around 13.3% ABV. For the first time, regulators and industry bodies have authorised an increase in the maximum permitted alcohol level, from 13% to 15%, applicable solely to the 2026 vintage.

Given the exceptional character of this year’s fruit, your Personal Vintage will be a rare and remarkable Champagne. In 2026, the vines gave us less, but what they gave us was extraordinary.