Our final tour to Champagne in 2025 has started! 25 of us gathered in our hotel bar in Reims, and enjoyed a glass of Lallier champagne, before heading round the corner to Le Condorcet restaurant, which put on a lovely dinner with friendly service, some more champagne, and a white and red from the Loire Valley. Conversation and wine flowed freely so we were glad of a relatively late start the following morning, heading for the Montagne de Reims.
In the village of Bouzy we visited Champagne Delavenne, a top grower producer. Susan, their export manager, explained about the family history – current owner Jean Chrisophe is the fourth generation. His father and grand father expanded the enterprise from the Bouzy vineyards bought by his great grandfather after the Great War, by marrying girls from Cramant and Ambonnay, and by digging the cellars we then entered.
In those cellars we passed the mural of Jean Christophe and father Jean Louis, and went deeper past the marks showing when a particular section had been dug by hand- my photos of 1976 and later didn’t come out so well, but they were definitely still digging then!
We viewed their gyrotec – automated riddling units, that are particularly gentle and suited to their very high quality wines.
Back on earth we learnt more about their philosophy of winemaking – everything is about the vine. Susan explained that they are not only organic, but also practice lithography, a form of homeopathy that involves misting very dilute solutions of dynamised crystals such as rose quartz, tourmaline and amber, onto the vines. With 80% of the vine’s ‘action’ going on in the roots, their philosophy is to focus on soil and therefore vine health, to avoid any inessential treatment, to harvest perfectly ripe grapes, and to interfere as little as possible in the winery.
Our tasting confirmed they are onto something. We enjoyed four super champagnes, from a zero dosage non vintage, through a low dosage Blanc de Noirs, their ‘Brut Réserve’ including wine from their perpetual reserve, finishing with a very lovely rosé.
This was a really lovely visit that set a very high bar for the rest of the tour!
From Bouzy we drove to Epernay where we enjoyed rubber necking as we drove down the Avenue de Champagne, and had a fine lunch at La Grillade Gourmande, accompanied by a magnum of fizz and some Coteaux Champenois red (Geoffroy’s Cumières Rouge).
Then it was back into the Montagne de Reims, this time to the Premier Cru village of Villers Marmery where we visited Boutillez Guer, a grower producer who Tim has been buying champagne from for 30 years!
Marc Boutillez, who Tim originally worked with, has retired, leaving the management of vineyards and winemaking in the more than capable hands of Manon, who in 2021 was recognised as one of the new generation of talented winemakers in Champagne (see blog from previous tour) . She took us into the vineyard, the vines had of course parted company from their grapes, and we learnt more about soil health, and reducing chemical inputs by tilling the soil and using pheromone traps to deter insects.
Manon described how Villers Marmery soils (and those of Trépail) are unique within the Montagne de Reims, and are better suited to Chardonnay than to the widely grown Pinot Noir, so Boutillez Guer’s vineyards are mainly planted with white grapes.
Our tasting was for Tim and me a bit of a memory lane trip – we drank Boutillez Guer wines at our wedding, and visited them on our very first wine tour in 2001! Still fabulous – lovely well made wines, that draw on their solera reserve wines that they top up each year to ensure consistency – their freshness and delicacy reflecting the Chardonnay grapes from which they were made (and their rosé, made with 10% Coteaux Champanois red, combined delicacy with lovely complexity).
Manon and Marc were lovely hosts, but they had plenty to do and we bade them farewell, returning to Reims to enjoy a sunny evening.