A commited Champagne House

Champagne Gardet wishes to combine 21st century technologies with the tradition inherited from the House’s founder to produce champagnes of excellence. That’s why the House has chosen to invest in the environment. The EnVol label is a way of identifying and bringing together all companies, particularly small and medium-sized businesses, that are committed to reducing their impact on the environment and protecting natural ecosystems and biodiversity. Champagne GARDET is the first Champagne House to be labelled EnVol, and also the first in the world of wines and spirits. Its commitment to the environment has now been rewarded, as has its quality management system.

Rigour, technological innovation and compliance with AOC regulations are all part of the values and commitments of Champagne Gardet.

“Champagne Gardet has always been a natural environmental-minded company. Management was looking for a way to reinvigorate the motivation of the teams while at the same time making the most of what had already been achieved: reducing our ecological footprint, pushing recycling and the use of recycled products even further. EnVol enabled us to set concrete and realistic objectives for a structure of our size, thanks to continuous improvement. It also enabled us to unite our teams around a unifying theme“, explains Stéphanie Sucheyre, oenologist and quality manager at the company.

An ISO norm stands for International Organization for Standardization, and is a reference document drawn up by an accredited organism which will provide and act upon the practices, and prohibitions, to be introduced in the company in order to respect the directives included in the norm. This translates into the integration of documentary requirements, how to structure this service, etc., and gives rise to practical assessments in the form of audits within the company. There are all sorts of standards covering different areas, and the number “22 000” specifies that the ISO standard relates to food safety. Champagne Gardet’s management of the quality and traceability of its products is exemplary, in order to ensure and constantly monitor the food safety of its customers. Traceability is the ability to track the production history, movements and location of products using an information recording system at all stages of production and distribution. This is a requirement of the ISO22000 standard, but it is also a legal requirement at Community level.

When a company meets the requirements of one of these standards, it is said to be certified or accredited according to the standard. Champagne Gardet has been ISO 22000 certified since 2012.

On a day-to-day basis, these practices have undeniable advantages for the company, but above all for the end consumer:

• Exemplary practices with a high level of staff involvement.
• Improving the company’s productivity.
• Guaranteeing consumer safety and satisfaction.

After the first Envol and ISO 22 000 certifications, Champagne Gardet has taken a further step in its daily commitment to the preservation of the environment, with the creation of the Brut Organic cuvée. This cuvée has already been rewarded by the Gilbert Gaillard guide, which awarded it a gold medal and by the Wine Enthusiast guide, which awarded it a score of 90/100,  in 2022. This cuvée comes from certified vines by the supplier partners.

More about Champagne Gardet BRUT Organic

Committed to respecting the environment, the Maison Gardet uses recyclable cardboard and paper boxes that comply with the FSC standard (regulation of tree plantations, guaranteeing the protection of biodiversity, waterways and soil), and are printed with biodegradable vegetable oil-based inks, used in smaller quantities and produced locally, less than 100km from the Maison.

For Champagne Gardet, the alliance between tradition and modernity is one of the most fundamental values. This is why all the bottles in the Prestige Collection are closed with corks that avoid 100% cork taint, to guarantee an authentic tasting experience. These corks are also bio-sourced, making them more environmentally friendly. This technical progress means that we can maintain the tradition of cork stoppers while adapting them to contemporary issues. Champagne Gardet uses MYTIK Diam corks, which are certified “OK bio-based” and between 80 and 100% bio-sourced. They avoid 100% cork taint and are environmentally friendly.

Combining tradition and modernity: LED relamping

Patience is the key word in the Champagne-making process… Champagne vinification is a long process that requires unique know-how, because it doesn’t age in your cellar, but in the cellars of the Champagne Houses. To age properly, champagne needs to be stored in cellars away from light, so that it does not alter the taste and quality of the wine, and at a constant temperature. Champagne cellars therefore play a major role in the production of champagne, thanks in particular to their relatively stable temperatures: between 10 and 12 degrees, in both summer and winter, and which therefore require no ‘external’ regulation (air conditioning or heating) and so no energy consumption.

At Champagne Gardet, the alliance between tradition and modernity is at the heart of the company’s concerns, and the commitment to environmentally-friendly working methods sometimes involves simple but highly effective actions, such as replacing all the cellar lighting with LED bulbs. While tradition demands a specific method of cellar conservation (a constant temperature of 12°C, away from light), modernity allows us to improve the equipment in place by replacing more than 200 standard bulbs with LEDs. This change will reduce the environmental impact of the house. The advantage of LED bulbs is that, as well as consuming less electricity, they have a much longer average lifespan than a conventional bulb. This means that lighting changes can be spaced out considerably, reducing electricity consumption and waste production.

For the moment, this project has been carried out in Champagne Gardet’s traditional cellars, using LED and UV bulbs for the House’s ‘visitor’ circuit, and will be extended, in phases between 2023 and 2024, to the winery.

At Champagne Gardet, environmental initiatives such as recycling are a daily requirement, and the entire team has been following a strict selective sorting system for over 10 years. A composter has been installed in the estate garden to limit food waste, and a sorting room is available, with a dedicated area for each recycling station.

Champagne Gardet integrates environmental issues into its daily life, starting with its choice of suppliers for the production of its secondary production materials: this is done exclusively by local, if not French, and at least, European companies. This choice also includes limiting over-packaging when purchasing these secondary materials.

All the materials used in the day-to-day bottling and packaging of the Champagnes – corks, capsules, wirehoods and, of course, the glass bottles – are recycled. All parts of the bottle are carefully separated and sorted. All by-products from the winemaking process are sent to the distillery for proper treatment, and all boxes (packaging and shipping) are recycled too.

Every little action counts. Preserving the environment is essential both personally and professionally, and Champagne Gardet strives to to improve every day.

Champagne Gardet is committed to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). This commitment is reflected in a number of labels and certifications, such as ISO 22000 certification (since 2012),   relating to food safety, and Envol certification (since 2018), which reflects the company’s commitment to reducing its environmental impact and protecting natural ecosystems and biodiversity.

Numerous measures are taken to reduce the company’s environmental impact as part of these certifications, and here we look more specifically at the reprocessing of secondary production materials such as glassine. Glassine is the ‘glazed’ paper used to preserve self-adhesive labels in roll form. Every year in France, around 50,000 tonnes of glassine are generated by the self-adhesive packaging industry. At Champagne Gardet, the glassine is returned to the supplier to be recycled as insulation. Transformed into cellulose wadding and incorporated into insulation, it is estimated that 1 tonne of glassine can insulate 2 attics in the middle-sized French house.

Based on Gardet’s production, which represents around 1,000,000 3-piece linings (labels / collars / back labels), each year 26,500 m2 of glassine are generated by Gardet’s production, i.e. around 2 tonnes of rolls, which are recycled to insulate around 4 attics in the medium-sized French house.

Every action counts. Protecting the environment is essential, and Champagne Gardet strives to  improve every day, both internally and through its choice of suppliers and the actions it takes to protect the environment.

https://www.soprema.fr/fr/article/dossier-thematique/ouate-de-cellulose-une-isolation-100-efficace-et-responsable 

Effluent treatment

Agricultural and wine production have an impact on the environment. In fact, in order to produce champagne of impeccable quality, it is necessary to constantly keep the production tools clean (vats, work areas: vat room, disgorging and dressing rooms, etc.). In order to control the impact of this cleaning, Champagne Gardet manages and treats industrial water completely independently. In 2000, a 70 m3 an industrial water recovery unit was built under the car park next to the Gardet winery, along with pipes to direct it to this recycling station. All the industrial water (water used for cleaning the winery, vats, disgorging, labelling rooms, etc.) is therefore channelled into this recovery tank, where it is treated and, once purified, discharged weekly into the environment through surface water.

Treatment of by-products

With the same aim of treating the waste from the production of our champagnes, the products from the vinification and disgorging processes are recycled. By-products from the vinification process, such as lees, must, champagnes that have been opened too long after tasting, or surplus ‘DPLC’ (Dépassement du Plafond Limite de Classement = grapes harvested in excess of the yield set by the CIVC, which make up the “Réserve Individuelle”, These cannot be marketed, but are only used to manage stocks), as well as the products of disgorging (bas-vins), are sent to a distillery to be processed and recycled to make, for example, marc, fine wine or ratafia of Champagne .

The tartaric precipitates found in the vats after repeated use are sent to a factory in the south of France, where they are reprocessed into cosmetics. Descaling the vats used to be done with soda ash, but following a number of accidents in the workplace (as this product is very abrasive), the vats and tools/equipment are now cleaned with high-pressure hot water.

An ecological freezing product

After resting for years, well protected in the secrecy of the cellars, from 3 to 5 years for the Tradition Collection, 7 to 9 for the Extra-Brut Collection and more than 10 years for the Prestige Collection, it is time for the Champagnes to move on to the disgorging stage. This stage consists of removing the yeast deposits that have been gradually drawn back into the neck of the bottle during riddling. To do this, the neck of the bottle is placed in an ice bath at -27° for a few minutes so that the deposits are trapped in an ice cube. The bottle is then opened and the pressure naturally present in the bottle expels the ice cube and the deposits with it. The solution used in the bath to cool the neck of the bottle was initially a chemical product (glycol or brine). For several years now, Champagne Gardet has been using a natural, environmentally-friendly freezing agent based on corn starch: green ice. As well as being natural, its major advantage is that it uses less energy than the chemical solution, as it takes less time to freeze.