Henri Giraud – Unusual Champagnes

“The Argonne forest is 70 kilometres northeast of Aÿ,” says Stéphane Barlerin, sales director at Champagne Giraud, based in the village of Aÿ in the heart of Champagne. “The soil is very poor there, the soil is very special. The oak trees grow very, very slowly and so you have a very fine grain of wood – wood that is very dense and thus perfect to vinify the delicate wines of Champagne.” Indeed, the soils in the area are special: the trees grow on so-called gaize soil, a porous, fragmental Cretaceous rock with an unusually high silica content. The forest is managed by the Office National des Forêts, France’s national forestry agency, but the Champagne house selects and buys the oak trees its barrels are made from. So far, Giraud has also helped to plant more than 50,000 new trees in the forest.