December 13, 2013
Terroir Champagne - A Growing Norm

Champagne houses emphasize their house style and maintain this house style and quality through the art of blending multiple sites, multiple vintages and multiple grapes. Over the past two decades, we’ve seen the grower Champagne movement shake up the Champagne world and prove to the consumers that the wine from the region can be a unique expression of place and people. Farming practices, vineyard terroir, grape and vintage are emphasized to show that the wine is much more than just for celebrations. Eric Asimov quotes Davy Dosnon from Dosnon & Lepage for New York Times, “But it’s also a wine of terroir, of place and should be thought of that way as well.”

This trend has made its way to the big Champagne houses with many now producing terroir Champagne. “We used to mix parcels from the same village; now we vinify each village’s parcels separately,” says Duval-Leroy chef de cave Sandrine Logette-Jardin. “We think more in terms of parcels than villages now. It’s a trend in Champagne.” (Champagne Unveiled, 2013)

In addition to more site specific labels appearing on the shelves, more and more wines are produced with minimal to no dosage. Many feel that low dosage allows the unique terroir of each wine to take center stage.

Below we detail our producers who focus on representing the land, vintage and grape.

Breaking away from the norm of blending, Cedric Bouchard bottles single vineyard, single varietal and single vintage wines. All of his wines are characterized by uniquely soil-driven personalities, with great purity of terroir expression. Val Vilaine a 1.49-hectare vineyard with 35-year old Pinot Noir vines in the village of Polisy. La Bolorée is a 21-acre parcel on chalk which contains Pinot Blanc vines planted in 1960. It’s extremely rare to find parcels of old-vine Pinot Blanc in Champagne, and rarer still to find them vinified and bottled separately. La Haute-Lemblé is an 11.8-acre, south-facing parcel of Chardonnay in Celles-sur-Ource.

Though Dominique Moreau inherited Marie-Courtin in 2000. Her vineyard is small, just 2.5 hectares, but is more than enough to create her vision of single-vineyard, single-varietal Champagnes. Her vineyard is located in Polisot (located the next town over from Celles-sur-Ource, where Cédric Bouchard lives and works).

The Pinot Noir grapes are 35 to 40 years old and comprise 90 percent of her planting; they thrive in the vineyard’s clay and chalk soils creating complex wines with vibrant minerality. With her philosophy of minimal intervention, Moreau hopes to express the energy of place and its natural rhythms in her wines. She uses organic and biodynamic viticulture in the fields, hand harvesting, natural yeasts, and a focus on low yields to preserve intensity in her grapes.

Françoise Bedel has been farming organically and biodynamically since 1997. She is without a doubt a leader of the biodynamic movement in Champagne. She tells Peter Liem that she’s noticed a change in her wines: “There’s a certain rectilinear character, a structure in the wines now…there’s a more intimate feeling in the flavors that connects the wine and the tasters, and the wines are more profound in expression.” Her little estate is located in Crouttes-sur Marne, in the extreme western reaches of Champagne, and the vines are planted on soils of chalk, gravel, clay and grey schist. Most of her holdings are planted to Pinot Meunier, which she showcases in her wines. Indigenous yeast and minimal to no dosage is used.

Dosnon & Lepage’s vineyard is two hectares in Avirey-Lingey with rolling hills of Kimmeridgian soil like in Chablis and parts of Sancerre. In addition they source from five hectares of other vintners. No chemicals are used in the vineyards. The wines are fermented with indigenous yeast and aged in Puligny-Montrachet barrels. Wines are neither fined nor filtered upon bottling.

Special Champagne House Wines Laherte Freres NV ‘Les 7’ Extra Brut This wine is made from lost grape varities that are planted in a parcel in Chavot. The parcel is farmed in a sustainable way and influenced by biodynamics. Natural fermentation occurs in aged Burgundy barrels. Low dosage.

Duval-Leroy 2005 ‘Clos des Bouveries’ Premier Cru Clos des Bouveries, overlooking the village of Vertus, is an ancient plot of land belonging to the Duval-Leroy family. This Champagne is 100% Chardonnay; the wine is partially fermented in oak barrels to contribute fine oak notes and partially fermented in stainless steel for mineral purity. Low dosage.