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Change is bubbling in Champagne.
WORDS Sarah E. Daniels
Set in the tip-top northeastern corner of France, where they’re faced with dramatic weather swings, bitter frost, high humidity, rot, mildew and more, producers throughout Champagne have earned a, well, less than sparkling reputation for their approach to viticulture, choosing historically to focus on blending, aging and tinkering in the cellar while a host of deleterious chemical-control measures has been applied liberally to the vines to mitigate any and all potential issues. In the last three or so decades, however, more and more value has been placed on agriculture, and alongside it, an authentic expression of varieties, vineyards and vintages, often through organic and biodynamic practices. Some of this movement is due to the latest crop of small grower-producers concerned with the health of their sites and interested in conveying terroir; some is due to larger, long-established houses getting increasingly serious about sustainable agriculture; all while early advocates of more natural production methods have gained new prominence. Read on to discover some of the standouts, along with bottle recommendations to get a taste of their perspective.
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Courtesy Champagne Fleury
Champagne Fleury
Champagne’s first biodynamic producer, Fleury has become a reference point for both meticulous agriculture and high-quality, terroir-driven sparklers. With viticultural roots in the Côte des Bar that date to 1895, the house was officially established in 1929, when founder Emile Fleury’s son Robert decided to start vinifying their grapes under their own label, effectively making them one of southern Champagne’s first grower-producers. Robert’s son, Jean-Pierre, was the first to cease the use of herbicides in the 1970s, steering the estate toward biodynamics in 1989 and converting all the vineyards by 1992. Today led by Jean-Pierre’s children, Fleury manages approximately 37 acres on both slopes of the Seine valley, cultivating Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Pinot Meunier, Pinot Blanc and Pinot Gris, to craft naturally fermented Champagnes that somehow manage to be equally fresh and opulent.
POP: Champagne Fleury Blanc de Noirs Brut NV
Champagne Pascal Agrapart
Pascal Agrapart thinks of winemaking as a collaboration between nature and humans, and has earned quite a bit of notoriety for his take on sustainable farming and his intense and chiseled, multidimensional bottlings. In 1984, he and his brother Fabrice gained control of the family’s 19th-century Côte des Blancs estate, Champagne Agrapart & Fils, spanning around two and a half acres primarily in Avize, Cramant, Oiry and Oger, with some of the oldest plantings in the area. By the early 2000s, however, he established Champagne Pascal Agrapart as his own label to home in on single-vineyard cuvées, refine his viticultural understandings and further explore individual terroirs. Now joined by his son Ambroise, Agrapart works the vineyards with an unrivaled attention to detail and appreciation for biodiversity, following organic and biodynamic principles, but without any interest in being labeled for such. Only native yeasts are used for fermentation. Everything is hand riddled; nothing is fined or filtered.
POP: Champagne Pascal Agrapart “Vénus” Blanc de Blancs Extra Brut 2017
Pascal and Ambroise Agrapart / Courtesy Polaner
Courtesy Schatzi Wines
Champagne Pascal Doquet
The former president of Association des Champagnes Biologiques, Champagne’s leading organization of certified organic producers, Pascal Doquet began making wine in the 1980s, taking the lead at his parent’s domaine in 1995 and immediately moving it in a more sustainable direction, ending all synthetic treatments by 2001. Three years later, he established his own estate with vineyard holdings in Le Mont Aimé, Le Mesnil-sur-Oger and Vertus, where his winery is located, at the southernmost end of the Côte des Blancs. Earning organic certification in 2010, Doquet has since become an iconic grower-producer for his unwavering commitments to sustainability and biodiversity, his fastidious work in the vineyards and overall connection to his land. Though he focuses predominantly on Chardonnay and most bottlings share some commonalities—like fermentation with natural yeasts and extended time on the lees—he vinifies each parcel separately and releases a range of illustrious and earthy vintage-dated and nonvintage cuvées.
POP: Champagne Pascal Doquet “Arpège” Blanc de Blancs Extra Brut NV
Louis Roederer
One of the last family-owned Champagne houses established in the 18th century, Reims-based Louis Roederer is the region’s largest biodynamic producer, cranking out 10 different sparkling cuvées, including vintage and nonvintage bottlings, and Coteaux Champenois still wines. The house owns and manages more than 600 acres—about a third each in Montagne de Reims, Vallée de la Marne and Côte des Blancs—all of which receive biodynamic composts, tea and preparations, and half of which are certified organic. “We wanted our vines to be more deep rooted,” says Jean-Baptiste Lécaillon, executive vice president and chef de caves of Louis Roederer, about their move to biodynamics. “We see a more balanced development of the vines and less sensitivity to diseases…higher pH and better phenolic ripeness… The key being always to let the fruit speak… if you let the fruit speak, the terroir eventually sings!”
POP: Louis Roederer “Collection 244” Brut NV
Courtesy Louis Roederer
Raphaël and Vincent Bérêche / Courtesy Cream Wine Company
Champagne Bérêche & Fils
Brothers Raphaël and Vincent Bérêche are the latest family members to helm the eponymous label founded in Montagne de Reims in 1847, and have earned the house elite status for their wide range of structural and refined, mineral-driven micro- cuvées. Since taking over in the early 2000s, they have moved operations in a decidedly more natural direction, eliminating herbicide use across the estate’s entire 22-plus acres, planting beneficial cover crops and increasingly implementing bio dynamic practices. Working with a diversity of terroirs around Ludes, Ormes and Vallée de la Marne’s Mareuil-le-Port, they vinify each parcel separately, most often in barrel with indigenous yeasts. Malolactic fermentation is avoided, and a growing number of the cuvées’ secondary fermentation is done under cork. While dosage levels vary per bottling, they are generally minimal.
POP: Champagne Bérêche & Fils Brut Réserve NV
Champagne Vouette & Sorbée
Which cuvée best represents the style of Champagne Vouette et Sorbée? Toutes, or “all,” says winemaker and proprietor Bertrand Gautherot. Based less than 40 miles northeast of Chablis in the village of Buxières-sur-Arce in the Côte des Bar—“the place to be”—Gautherot began farming more than 13 acres of family-owned vines in the late 1980s, and it wasn’t long before he saw conversion to organic and biodynamic viticulture as “essential for the health of people and nature.” His vineyards gained Demeter certification in 1998 and he began producing Champagne under his own label in 2001. Today, Gautherot is one of the region’s most vocal proponents of sustainable and holistic agriculture, and believes the expression of terroir c’est fondamental, fermenting with indigenous yeasts, never fining, filtering or adding dosage, and using only a small amount of sulfur to ensure it shines through in all his bottlings.
POP: Champagne Vouette & Sorbée “Fidèle” Brut Nature NV
Courtesy Champagne Vouette & Sorbée
Courtesy Bowler
Francis Boulard & Fille
Francis Boulard et Fille is one of the only grower-producers based in Montagne de Reims’s Massif de Saint-Thierry, the northernmost Champagne area. The label was founded in 2009 when Francis Boulard, a sixth-generation grape grower, broke away from his family’s now defunct Raymond Boulard estate at his siblings’ refusal to even consider farming organically. With the help of his daughter Delphine, who had been working alongside him in the vines for nearly a decade, he claimed just about seven and a half acres across Massif de Saint-Thierry, Montagne de Reims and Vallée de la Marne for their own venture, earning organic certification soon after and receiving Demeter certification in 2015. Delphine took the reins in 2016, becoming equally attentive to vineyard work and intervening minimally in the cellar. Separated by plot and variety, grapes are pressed gently and immediately after harvest with as little sulfur as possible. Only indigenous yeasts are used for fermentation, and the wines are bottled unfined and unfiltered with little to no dosage.
POP: Francis Boulard & Fille “Les Murgiers” Brut Nature NV
Champagne Amaury Beaufort
The Beaufort name is somewhat legendary in Champagne thanks to Amaury’s father, Jacques Beaufort, an early pioneer of organic viticulture who, along with creating somewhat wild, voluptuous sparklers at the family’s Champagne André Beaufort estate, ceased chemical use in 1970 but remained infamously embattled with the Champagne appellation and resisted certification until the mid ‘90s. Amaury left to forge his own path with a small parcel just over two acres in size in Polisy in the Côte des Bar, from which he produces strikingly pure, honest expressions of terroir. Deemed “Le Jardinot,” the site was planted to Pinot Noir and Chardonnay in 1972, has never seen synthetic treatments and was certified organic in 2018. Amaury’s viticultural work is intricate and impassioned, focused intently on soil health and careful pruning. In the cellar, wines undergo longer-than-usual élevage in conical casks that promote lees movement without the need for stirring. Fermentations are natural, with secondary fermentation produced via frozen musts, sulfur is never used, and finished wines are unfined and unfiltered.
POP: Champagne Amaury Beaufort “Le Jardinot XIX” Brut Nature NV
Courtesy Champagne Amaury Beaufort
Courtesy Coeur Wine Company
Domaine Nowack
Domaine Nowack is one of the latest producers to gain somewhat of a cult status among Americans, with wines distributed in miniscule allocations. Though the estate’s roots date back to the late 1700s, the fanfare is due to the intricate work of young Flavien Nowack, who got involved in 2011 and has slowly taken over operations, converting the vineyards to organic viticulture, leaning into biodynamics and bottling individual parcels within his home village of Vandières, in the Vallée de la Marne. Growing mostly Pinot Meunier, with a bit of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, across upwards of 17 acres, he ensures grapes are fully ripe before harvest and presses them slowly via a technique developed by his uncle. Only native yeasts are used for primary fermentation, and secondary fermentations are done with grape must. He does not chaptalize, fine or filter, and there is significant lees contact. The resulting Champagnes are ageworthy expressions that emphasize primacy of place, lingering and mouthwatering with persistent minerality.
POP: Domaine Nowack “La Fontinette” Meunier Extra Brut 2019
Domaine de Bichery
“We try to have our wines the closest as possible from our vines,” says Raphaël Piconnet, who, alongside his wife Hannah, owns and operates Domaine de Bichery in the Côte des Bar. After studying viticulture in Burgundy and Switzerland, he returned to his childhood home in Neuville-sur-Seine in 2013 to take over six parcels established by his grandfather, nearly 20 acres of vines that stretch through the commune and neighboring Gyé-sur-Seine. The Piconnets began converting to organics a year later and achieved organic certification in 2016. Working with low yields, they harvest fruit when it’s most physiologically ripe and, ideally, when it’s most expressive. In the cellar, they intervene as minimally as possible to create naturally fermented, unfined and unfiltered, no-dosage cuvées, most of which are vintage, single-plot bottlings. Though production is small—about 2,500 cases a year—the wines are radiant, evocative and markedly vinous.
POP: Domaine de Bichery “La Source” Brut Nature 2019
Courtesy Domaine de Bichery
Courtesy Domaine Vincey
Domaine Vincey
Based in Oger in the Côte des Blancs, Quentin and Marine Zabarino are the ambitious young couple behind Domaine Vincey, crafting solely vintage- dated, site-specific cuvées that are extremely aromatic, vibrant and soft. While Quentin is the domaine’s eighth-generation winegrower, he and Marine are the first to craft wine—like most of the 500 growers in their village, all fruit was previously sold to the local cooperative. They’re also the first to work the estate organically, beginning with their first vintage in 2014, recently achieving both organic and Demeter certifications. They cultivate more than 17 acres of vines, mostly in the Côte des Blancs, but also in Montagne de Reims, Vallée de la Marne and Côte des Bar, and manage another nearly 15 acres each of forests and pasture for their “troop of sheeps,” says Marine, who feels nourishing their property as a complete ecosystem is vital for the health of their vines. They try to remain hands-off in the cellar, using gravity and applying very little sulfur. Wines are aged in oak for about a year before long maturation in bottles, and are unfined and unfiltered.
POP: Domaine Vincey “Oger” Grand Cru Extra Brut 2018
Champagne Étienne Calsac
Expansive, characterful and intriguingly persistent are a few descriptors that pop to mind for the boutique sparklers of Étienne Calsac, who took over his grandparents’ holdings in 2010 when he was just 26 years old and has been gaining more and more international reverence. With around seven acres situated across Avize and Grauves in the Côte des Blancs and Bisseuil in the Vallée de la Marne, Calsac cultivates mostly Chardonnay, so works diligently to highlight the nuances of site specificity. Slowly converting the sites to organics and nourishing cover crops between vineyard rows, his manual vineyard work is aided only by horse, with great priority given to soil health. In the cellar, vinification is meant to be minimalist and fermentations are spontaneous, with individual parcels fermented separately, in a combination of tank and used barrels. All wines go through malolactic fermentation and if dosage is used, it is with concentrated grape must. He also experiments with long lees aging and low sulfur use.
POP: Champagne Étienne Calsac “L’échappée Belle” Extra Brut NV
Courtesy Champagne Étienne Calsac
This article was published in the Winter 2023 issue of Full Pour. Don’t own it? Pick one up today!