This Must Be the Place: a Selection of Terroir Specific Champagnes
3/22/16 -
(Photo: Hubert Soreau in the vines)
In as much as Champagne can be considered a brand embodying a "House Style," which is often the case, it can be a true wine of terroir. Whether it’s the sub-regional distinctions from the Kimmeridgian soils of the Côtes de Bar to the distinct chalkiness of the Côte des Blancs or explored at an even closer level such as an individual lieu dit or parcel within a particular vineyard, organic farming and deft winemaking helps distinctive terroir speak clearly. Below are a number of Champagnes which while delicious are also particularly soil driven and compelling.
We've had the disticntive pleasure of carrying Emmanuel Brochet's Champagnes from the northern portion of the Montagne de Reims for a few years now and marvel at their distinctive savory stoniness. Emanuel Brochet meticulously farms a 2.5 hectare plot called 'Le Mont Benoit' in the village of Villers-aux-Noeuds, where the three major Champagne grapes are grown in the chalky-clay soils over Cretaceous chalk of the mid-slope vineyard. He ferments with native yeasts and vinifies in wood and his wines have a distinctly mineral core which is nearly tactile on the palate. The 2012 base Le Mont Benoit is newly arrived and still a bit taut, but displays this pungent earthiness and is already layered and complex for a young wine.
We've been fans of the incisive, terroir-driven Champagnes of Laherte Frères for quite some time now. Located south of Epernay where the chalky soils of the Côtes des Blancs and the clays of the Vallée de Marne intersect, Laherte combines organic and biodynamic viticulture and deft use of oak aging to fashion wines which are rich, mineral, and unabashedly focused. Les Vignes d'Autrefois is old vine Pinot Meunier from the villages of Chavot and Mancy whose soils are clay over chalk producing a Champagne of suppleness, cut, and clarity. The oak aging lends a sense of texture to this chalky exppression Pinot Meunier which straddles the line between power and poise.
Benoit 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 begins to bear fruit. Second, while some vignerons embrace biodynamics to improve their wines, one gets the sense Benoit believes that embracing biodynamics inmproves his life and the farming and wines follow suit. Blessed with old vines in Ambonnay and Bouzy his wines are profoundly mineral as well as powerful, though never top-heavy. His work in the vines as well as fermenting and aging in barrels produces wines of richness and class expressing the character of the terroir, quite deftly. Both Les Crayères and Les Bermonts from two different sites in Ambonnay combine power and finesse while being profoundly mineral, though showing this minerality in different registers.
Hubert Soreau is a new grower for us. His Champagne comes from 3 parcels of Chardonnay totaling .49 hectare in Le Clos l'Abbé, very near Epernay, whose soils are made up of clay and silt above Cretaceous chalk. The Clos has been planted to vines since the 9th Century when the Bishop on Reims ordered it cleared for viticulture. Soreau's production is quite modest, about 1200 bottles, but of beautiful quality. The vines are farmed without chemical fertilizes, herbicides, or pesticides. The fermentations are with native yeasts in used barriques and 300 liter barrels from nearby Hautvillers, the secondary fermentation takes place under cork, and the wines are aged sur latte for seven years. The wines have a distinctive chalkiness, but with a bit more richness than the blanc de blancs one finds in the Côte des Blancs. The 2008 base Le Clos l'Abbé is suave and mineral with a fine bead; the finish is dry and admirably long.
John McIlwain
