CHAMPAGNE
Beyond its familiar big-name houses, Champagne is home to smaller-scale grower-producers making a wide range of lovingly crafted wines that offer high quality and true local individuality
Champagneis in flux; it is also booming. This is true across the board. Prestige cuvées sell on allocation, prices of leading high street brands climb steadily, and certain coveted grower Champagnes from the likes of Jérôme Prévost or Guillaume Selosse cannot be had for love nor money – even if you could afford the stratospheric prices that they command. Land prices in Champagne have quintupled over the past 30 years, according to Statista 2023 data. Clearly demand outstrips supply.
A global army of fizz fans willing to shell out for top bottlings of big names and micro-cuvées from cultish growers fires this boom, which enables fascinating start-ups looking to fill the gap – from the Massif de Saint-Thierry just above the city of Reims all the way south to the Côte des Bar. Some of these are the star winemakers of tomorrow.
Refreshingly, the newcomers are a mixed bunch. There are locals and outsiders, old hands and fresh-faced youngsters. Some have only just launched their first wines; others have operated below the radar for a while. Most of them come from families who own vineyards and have previously sold their grapes – giving them the opportunity to start making wine from part of the harvest while selling the rest, thereby financing their own venture.
FAMILY TIES
Margot Laurent, 32, of Oudiette X Filles in Epernay, launched her first Champagne in 2021. It was from the 2017 harvest, made in rented cellar space, and there were just 3,214 bottles of it. Previously a graphic designer, she started a new domaine, named after her grandmother Oudiette, along with her mother Florence and sister Charlotte after Florence inherited 2.5ha of vines in Beaunay in the Val du Petit Morin, an extension of the Côte des Blancs to its southwest. The grandparents had sold grapes and Laurent insisted: ‘If I come back to the family vineyard, we bottle our own wine.’ That was in 2015, so she took evening classes in oenology, selling the grapes until she felt confident enough to make the estate’s first wine. Her smile tells all. She’s found her calling in making mono-cru (from one village) Champagne. She has also bottled a single-parcel wine and explores polyculture and agroforestry.
Perrine Fresne (pictured p73), also 32, is based on the northwestern edge of the Montagne de Reims, in Sermiers, a premier cru village known for Pinot Meunier on clay and sand soils. Fresne started in 2019 with 3ha when her father retired, and launched her first Champagne in October 2022. Each harvest
