Champagne's Côte des Bar sub-region

The Côte des Bar, the southernmost of the Champagne sub-regions, is located 100 km south of Epernay and, as such, is closer to Burgundy's Chablis than it is to the heart of the Champagne region. The sub-region's 7,900 ha of vines, and 64 villages, is distributed between two growing areas: Bar sur Aubois and Barséquanais.

Côte des Bar (Source: champagne.fr)

Today the Côte des Bar is prized for its Pinot Noir and the character that its wine adds to Champagne blends; but the region was not always welcomed with open arms by the sub-regions to the north.

Regulatory History
The regulatory history of Champagne is bound up in brand-protection strategy and questions as to the physical boundaries of the brand and who/what would be excluded from the brand's inner circle.  The case of Champagne was further complicated by an internecine war between the French Departments of Marne and Aube as to whether Aube should be considered a part of Champagne or a part of Burgundy.

In the 1890s and early 1900s, the grape growers in Marne and Aube felt that the Champagne Houses were bringing grapes in from other French regions, blending it with local grapes, and calling the resulting product Champagne.  This was a problem on two levels: (i) It had quality implications in that bad product would reflect directly on the "Champagne" growers and (ii) more importantly, it provided competition for local grapes in an environment where prices were already deathly low. Growers organized themselves into the Fédérations des Syndicats Viticoles de la Champagne and lobbied the government to pass laws that would make it a fraudulent act to sell a wine as Champagne if it was made, wholly or in part, with grapes from "foreign" sources. The Law of August 1, 1905, went a long way to meeting the organization's goal in that it allowed the government to regulate the composition and origin of wine "of general and specific areas" (maisons-champagne.com) and to pursue offenders.

In order to "flesh out" the 1905 Law, a December 1908 Law defined the areas that would be considered as Champagne for wine-production purposes.  The areas designated as such were Marne and selected communes in Aisne to a total of 33,500 hectares.  A subsequent Law passed on the 17 June, 1911 designated Aube as a Champagne-Deuxième Zone, a classification which would prevent Aube-resident growers from selling their grapes into the main Champagne region.  The Aube growers were unhappy with this solution and they took the issue up again after the end of WWI and got relief with the Law of May 6, 1919 which defined the Champagne wine-growing region in terms of size as well as grape varieties.  Marne inhabitants disputed the Law and it was placed in the hands of an arbitrator for final resolution.  His findings, which made their way into the Law of 1927, defined the AOC system for all of France, did away with the Champagne-Deuxième Zone, and included Aube in the Champagne AOC (maisons-champagne.com).

Champagne region post the 1927 Law (Map source: terroir-france.com/wine/champagne_map.htm)

Climate
The climate in the Côte des Bar is reflective of two influences: (i) an Atlantic, rain-bearing influence from the west and (ii) the extreme temperatures associated with continental impacts. It is felt that this combination of moisture and heat aids in the full ripening of region's grapes.

Côte des Bar Soils

At varying periods of the earth's history, portions of present-day Europe were covered by shallow seas. Such was the condition during the Jurassic period in the time span we now call the Kimmeridgian Age, identified by ammonite and oyster fossils found in associated strata.

Strata from periods post the Jurassic continued to be deposited into the shallow seas and many of these layers were forced to the surface when the area that is known today as the Paris Basin began a slow sag during the late Tertiary and Quaternary periods. This slow tilting of the Basin allowed the Seine, Aube, Yonne, and Loire rivers to "downcut through the rising ridges, thus cutting the Kimmeridgian-Portlandian outcrop band into an archipelago of wine areas" (Wilson).

Source: timkeen.com

The figures above show that upper Jurassic deposits (which would include Portlandian and Kimmeridigian deposits) came to the surface in a band that falls below the Champagne and Loire bands and above the Burgundy band. Wilson refers to the Kimmeridgian outcrops as the Kimmeridgian Chain in that they are distinct and separate from their associated wine regions. The primary Kimmeridgean vineyard sites in France are: (i) the Aube sub-region of Champagne; (ii) the Chablis, Tonnerre, and Auxerrois areas of Burgundy; and (iii) the Pouilly, Sancerre, and Menetou-Salon areas of the Loire Valley.

Wilson sees the key to Kimmeridgian soil as the way it works with its Portlandian partner. The marly soil of the Kimmeridgian develop good structure and water-retention characteristics and is easy to cultivate. The hard limestone of the Portlandian contains many fossils and fragments and is also cracked by frost. This enables aeration of the slopes as well as aiding in drainage.

To be specific, the subsoils of the Côte des Bar is mainly composed of marls, limestones, and clays from Kimmeridgian deposits. On the slopes, the stony limestone elements help the soils to drain fully.

Vines
While its fellow Kimmeridgian traveler (Chablis) focuses on Chardonnay, the variety of choice in Côte des Bar is Pinot Noir (84.44 of the plantings). The vines are planted on hillsides with steep slopes  where the stony limestone elements help the soils to drain freely.

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