A Little Offering of Larmandier-Bernier
10/31/2024
There are many Champagnes that could be considered legacy wines at Chambers Street, from producers who are aligned with our commitment to organic and biodynamic viticulture and low intervention winemaking. Certain bottles I can remember from glancing at the label from great distances, as they graced our shelves for so many consecutive years that the iconography is etched in my brain. I can't recall when we started stocking Larmandier-Bernier Champagnes, but I would venture to say we always did, as the estate was certified organic in 2003 (practicing since the late 1970s) and we probably sold our last bottle of Veuve around the same time, before we transitioned to only carrying grower champagnes. The wines were originally imported by our close friends at Louis/Dressner Selections, and we hosted Pierre Larmandier at the shop as far back as 2008, so the history of the estate and its place among our core selections of Champagne is a long one.
I recently had the opportunity to taste a lineup of wines from the estate with Arthur, one of the two sons of Pierre and Sophie, who recently joined his parents at the estate in 2017, with his brother Georges joining in 2021. Arthur and George have continued in their parents' footsteps and are producing beautifully balanced wines in the Côtes des Blancs. The tasting and master class provided a great opportunity to try wines from different base vintages and to learn more about the character and personality of the wines and the sites that they come from. I had four favorites that stood out to me, and today have decided to put together a little offering!
At the Larmandier-Bernier tasting recently, Arthur mentioned how lucky he was to have parents that believed in organic and Biodynamic farming for such a long time. Often a new generation will join the old, and there can be conflict or argument over changes in farming or winemaking approach. Not so at Larmandier-Bernier, where Arthur's parents, Pierre and Sophie, continued in the footsteps of Arthur's grandfather, who started working with an organic approach in the 1970s. Pierre was one of the first producers in all of Champagne to start bottling single vineyard wines, in the 90s. This did happen to ruffle his father's feathers a bit, but once the results were tasted, everyone was in accord. The estate has used no chemicals for over 20 years and farms 19 hectares total, almost all of which are planted to Chardonnay, with 1 out of the 19 hectares planted to Pinot Noir. They do not sell or buy grapes. All fermentations are in wood of different sizes. They clean the cellar meticulously as they only want yeast from the vineyards and no yeast from the cellar, in an effort for their wines to fully reflect the vineyards that they are sourced from. For dosage, they exclusively use organic MCD (moux de raisins concentrée) from the south of France, concentrated pure sugar from grapes, as they want "everything to come from grapes, with no cane sugar." In the Fall, they close the doors to their cellar so that malolactic can finish naturally, giving them 9 months of natural sedimentation. All of these approaches help to make their Champagnes some of the finest in the Côte des Blancs, a testament to their great work in the vineyard giving true wines of terroir.
-Eben Lillie
