On Friday we headed south to the Aube, a couple of hours’ drive from Reims, where 25% of Champagne’s vineyards produce mainly Pinot Noir, but as we were to discover, all of its grape varieties.
Our first visit was to Champagne Drappier, which has a rich history dating back to the 12th Century when the original cellars were dug by the monks of the Clairveau Abbey set up by Dom Bernard, who had come from an abbey in Burgundy and wished to continue to make wine (vines had already been planted by the Romans).
Owned by the Drappier family since 1808, the house has a fine reputation, and during our visit to their cellars led by Samuel we learnt something of what underpins this. They offer all sizes of champagne bottle, and very unusually conduct the second fermentation in the very large sizes (which are usually considered too unwieldy to go through disgorgement and are therefore transferred via a tank at that point). A tiny quarter bottle atop a ‘Meichisedech’ containing 30 litres (40 bottles) demonstrated the range!
They also have a considerable amount of wine kept in oak vessels of varying shapes and sizes. The eggs and foudres contained the wines for special cuvées such as Charles de Gaulle, others contained their perpetual reserve, others the liqueur d’expedition which was a blend of 700g of organic cane sugar for each litre of wine, and is transferred to the demijohns we saw ready for the process of assemblage prior to the second fermentation – achieving the correct level of ‘dosage’ for a particular cuvée.
The photo is not that clear but above the demijohns are the sample bottles from every bottling they make that are kept in case of any issues in a batch.
Our tasting was of four wines, starting with their Brut Nature and ending with the Charles de Gaulle. We were very lucky to taste a Blanc de Blanc made from equal proportions of four of the five permitted white grape varieties in Champagne: Pinot Blanc, Petit Meslier, Arbanne and Chardonnay – it was super.
On to the Val Moret restaurant for a very pleasant lunch, with of course Champagne, some Rosé de Riceys (a local appellation for rosé made from Pinot Noir) and some Coteaux Champenois red also made from Pinot Noir.
Our afternoon visit was to Devaux. The name comes from a Champagne house in Epernay, which ran out of male heirs (and had actually been run very successfully by a series of widows) in 1987. It then combined with the large Union of Amboise co-ops in the Aube, and they occupy a beautiful old house on the site of a paper mill with their winemaking and cellaring operations over the road.
Cathy and Audrey were our hosts, we didn’t visit the winery but did have a quick review of their growers’ vineyards (in the Côte de Blancs as well as the Aube) in the orangery, looked out across the Seine River, which had risen near Dijon and was heading for Paris and Normandy, and then admired the dovecote (which could house 1,200 doves but now displays bottles) – historically only landowners could have dovecotes, and of a size that would house 2 doves for each hectare of land!
Our tasting was in a very fine room with some lovely paintings on the wall – this is where Renoir painted and a festival/competition is held each year in his honour, Devaux display (and sell) the winner’s art. We just tasted champagnes from the ‘D’ range, which are made from particularly fine plots of grapes, 40% of the blends are from their perpetual reserve which has been building for 25 years, and are aged on lees for at least 5 years. We finished with their D Millésime 2014 (a vintage, so no reserve wine), which was disgorged 10 years after bottling and was our favourite by some margin.
The clouds had loomed over us all day, and by the time we were back in Reims the rain had set in. But our spirits were definitely light!