We are proud to announce our HVE-3 and VDC certifications, obtained 2021, 2nd of April:
High Environmental Value Level 3 (HVE-3) :
The HVE certification is a French national certification of Agricultural Minister resulting of tripartite talks between Agricultural organizations, Green association and political parties, and the State.
The HVE certification prone to apply to all kind of agricultural production complying with some criteria. est susceptible de s’appliquer à tout type de production agricole respectant un certain nombre de critères. Elle est fondé sur des indicateurs de résultats relatifs à la biodiversité, la stratégie phytosanitaire et la gestion de la fertilisation.
Sustainable Viticulture in Champagne (VDC) :
The VDC certification is a certification created by the Comité Champagne with agreement from the French Agriculture Minister. It makes true the champagne industry ambitions to become at mid-term the first region to uses sustainable viticultural practices on all their vineyards.
VDC certification is more ambitious than the HVE label. It commits the champagne vine growers to reduce the ecological foot print with 3 main topics: biodiversity, carbon balance et water preservation.
For instance, VDC already forbids the use of glyphosate herbicides (Roundup and similar).
VDC certification is one of the tools that the champagne industry now fully use to reach its self-defined objectives, for exemple the Zéro Herbicide target in 2025 on the total area of the Champagne Protected Appellation, an objective that we already reaches in advance in our vineyards since 2016 (more here). In 2021, VDC certified vineyards are representing 15% of the total vineyards. The champagne industry objective is 100% of the vineyards VDC certified in 2030.
HVE and VDC logos are absent from our bottle labels.
Those logos will not be applied on our bottles of champagne, at least for now. First our champagnes are blends of several years, second these are aging from 2 to 10 years in our cellars before to be sold. However, when buying our champagnes, you support our efforts for better practices, now officially towards cleaner practices !