Champagne Marguet - The Bright Light of Ambonnay

9/26/19 -

Benoît Marguet is one of our favorite Champagne producers for many reasons. First, it's fascinating to see someone's wines improve with every vintage as his dedication to biodynamics bears fruit. Second, while some vignerons embrace biodynamics to improve their wines, one gets the sense Benoît believes that embracing biodynamics improves his life, while the farming and wines follow suit. Blessed with old vines in Ambonnay and Bouzy his wines are detailed and stony, as well as powerful, though never top-heavy. His work in the vines, as well as fermenting and aging in barrel, produces wines of richness and class expressing the character of the terroir, quite deftly. Lieux-dits Les Crayères, Les Bermonts, Le Parc, and for the first time Les Saints Rémys (four different sites in Ambonnay) combine texture, power, and finesse while being profoundly mineral, though expressing this minerality in different registers. John McIlwain