"Great Growers": Locating the "finest" artisanal grower-producers in the Champagne region

Robert Walters "is a wine merchant, writer and vineyard owner with over 25 years of experience in the wine trade. His obsessive search for great grower wines has led him to work closely with many important producers in Europe, Australia and New Zealand as well as many of Champagne's finest artisans ..." (Back cover flap of Bursting Bubbles). Robert leveraged his experience and knowledge into production of a number of Champagne-related articles for The World of Fine Wine and then used that knowledge base as the core of his book Bursting Bubbles: A Secret History of Champagne and the Rise of the Great Growers.

Robert takes two journeys in his book: (i) one through the history of the Champagne region and (ii) a physical journey through the region to "... visit many of the finest of these 'grower producers' -- the artisans who are producing Champagne's most exciting and authentic  wines." I have covered each of these "finest" growers individually on this blog and will use this post to compare and contrast them across a number of relevant characteristics.

The figure, and immediately following table, show the population and geographic distribution of the growers identified as the "finest" by Walters.

Table 1: Regions and communes of the Great Growers

Producer	Sub-region	Growing Zone	Home Commune	Other Communes
Agrapart et Fils	Côte des Blancs	Côte des Blancs	Avize	Ogier, Cramant, Oiry
Anselme Selosse	do.	do.	Avize	Cramant, Le Mesnil, Aÿ, Ambonnay, Mareuil-sur- Aÿ
Larmandier-Bernier	do.	do.	Vertus	Cramant, Chouilly, Oger, Avize,
Ulysse Collin	do.	Val du Petit Morin, Côte de Sezanne	Congy
Jacques Lassaigne	do.	Montgueux	Montgueux
La Closerie (Jérôme Prévost)	Montaigne de Reims	Petite Montaigne	Gueux
Chartogne-Taillet	do.	Massif de St. Thierry	Merfy	Chenay, St. Thierry
Egly-Ouriet	do.	Grand Montaigne, Petite Montaigne	Ambonnay	Bouzy, Verzenay, Vrigny
Vouette et Sorbée (Bernard Gautherot)	Côte des Bar		Buxières-sur-Arce	Ville-sur-Arce
Roses de Jeanne (Cédric Bouchard)	do.		Celles-sur-Ource

Grand Cru, Premier Cru, Autre Cru.

Some points of note on the above data:

• Vineyard sizes range between 1.5 and 12 hectares
• Almost half of the producers have been influenced in one way or the other by Jacques Selosse
• A majority of the producers had served a stint away from the estate before returning and taking up the reigns
• Four of the 10 producers have access to Grand and/or Premier Cru vineyards.

In order to be officially classed as a grower-producer, the producer has to vinify and age estate-grown fruit. Use of non-estate fruit causes the producer to be classed as a negociant-producer; and two of our identified producers have crossed over into that territory:

(i) Jérôme Prévost came by way of his 2.2-ha vineyard -- Les Béguines -- as a result of his mother inheriting the property. According to Tyson Stelzer (Champagne Grower-producers: the beginning of the end, Decanter, 7/7/2018), while the 13,000-bottle annual production is well-regarded, and sells for respectable prices, "such a small production is insufficient to sustain his livelihood. In order to grow production by purchasing fruit, Prévost recently relinquished his récoltant-manipulant credentials to be reincarnated as a négociant-manipulant."

(ii) Jacques Laissagne's estate holding is a single 3.5-ha block in the Le Cotet vineyard. In an effort to tap into all of the terroir opportunities on Montgueux, Emmanuel supplements the estate fruit with grapes purchased from a few small growers. In order to ensure that the purchased product approaches the level of quality of his grapes, Emmanuel's requirements are as follows:

• The source vineyard must be located in Montgueux
• The source vineyard must have a south or southeast exposure
• The source vineyard must rest on chalky soils
• The vineyard must be managed by a good grower who works effectively in the vineyard
• The fruit must issue from old vines (45 - 60 years old).

As a result of purchasing fruit, Jacques Lassaigne is classed as a négociant-manipulant.

The table below captures selected critical perspectives of the Great-Grower wines. The shared

Table 2: The wines of the "Finest" producers

Producer	Wine
Agrapart et Fils	… pillowy textures from ripe Chardonnay … married to a racy, saline, mineral freshness … mouth-filling and relatively full-bodied wines, yet they are never heavy; rather, they are always refreshing, energetic and racy. They are without doubt some of the very finest wines being produced today in Champagne
Jacques Selosse	"outstanding for their arresting tang and vinosity combined with what I can only call a gorgeous finesse of mousse ..." (Tom Hall, scalawine.com)
Larmandier-Bernier	“… wines of great purity, monuments of restraint that are one more nod to the monastic" Peter Liem (Champagne)
Ulysse Collin	“… ripe, richly expressive single-vineyard wines
Jacques Lassaigne	Les Vignes de Montgueux – a racy, salty, iodine noted wine, at once deliciously refreshing yet having good depth and some exotic notes. Le Cotet – a racy, mineral, citrusy, complex wine (Walters)
La Closerie (Jerome Prévost)	“Saline, savory undertones and sleek, tense build. Its energy and vibrancy is unlike any other Meunier in Champagne and his wine always needs several years after its release to reveal its depth and complexity of flavor” (Peter Liem)
Chartogne-Taillet	"… each distinct, complex and terroir-driven and yet they share a minerality and vinosity that can be attributed to Alexandre's hard work in the vineyard" (closcru.com)
Egly-Ouriet	Power, purity, intensity of fruit
Vouette et Sorbée (Bernard Gautherot)	“… uncompromisingly original, possessing deep, vinous aromas and assertive personalities. These are wines before they are Champagnes, and their intensity of character makes them more suitable for contemplative drinking or to accompanying food than to casual sipping” (Peter Liem)
Roses de Jeanne (Cédric Bouchard)	“… some of the most spectacular wines being made anywhere in the world …” (Antonio galloni

objective of these producers is to craft wines reflective of the grape sources -- terroir wines -- and they accomplish that goal by harvesting ripe fruit and vinifying and aging them with the minimum of intervention. Ripe grapes result from a combination of the right soils, right exposition, and best farming practices.

I will elaborate on the viticultural and vinicultural experiences of these Great Growers in a subsequent post. If, in the meantime, you would like to read the individual posts on each of these estates, please click on any one of the links below.

Agrapart et fils
Jacques Selosse
Larmandier-Bernier
Ulysse Collin
Jacques Lassaigne
La Closerie (Jérôme Prévost)
Chartogne-Taillet
Egly-Ouriet
Vouette et Sorbee (Bernard Gautherot)
Roses de Jeanne (Cédric Bouchard)


©Wine -- Mise en abyme

Cédric Bouchard and Roses de Jeanne: Pushing the edge of the Grower-Champagne envelope

And so I have come to the end of my examination of the Champagne producers identified as "Great Growers" by Robert Walters in his book Bursting Bubbles. And it is ironic that we are ending with one of the best among this elite group who is producing grapes and wines in the least-heralded of the Champagne sub-regions: Cédric Bouchard (Roses de Jeanne) of the Côte des Bar.

Source: cellartracker.com

The accolades for this producer flow endlessly:

• "... some of the most spectacular wines being made anywhere in the world ..." -- Antonio Galloni
• "The most coveted, and, arguably, the finest grower Champagnes are made by two producers -- Selosse and Bouchard" -- Renaissance Vintners
• "Enthusiastic and talented young grower ... enigmatic and almost Byronic ..." -- BBR
• "Bouchard is the most extreme of the great growers ... in that he pushes many of the agreed philosophies of quality and terroir as far as they will go -- and then a little further" -- Walters.

Like the majority of his fellow Great Growers, Cédric did not serve time with the family estate on a continuous basis. Rather, he went to Paris and got a job in a wine shop. While there he was exposed to wines from other regions and became especially enamored of the wines and practices of Burgundy. And it is this Burgundian wine ethic that colors his approach to winemaking.

Cédric eventually came back to Côte des Bar but his new views on winemaking did not sit well with his Champagne-traditional father and they butted heads constantly. In 2000 his father gave him access to the low-yielding Les Urseles parcel so that he could go off and experiment on his own. According to Cédric, his father thought that he was giving him the worst plot of the holdings but its low-yielding nature fit neatly into his burgeoning philosophy: sustainable farming, minimal yields, ripe fruit, and minimal intervention in the cellar.

Cédric named his new venture Roses de Jeanne in honor of his Polish grandmother Janika. His first vintage from Les Ursules was released in 2002. Subsequent to that release he has acquired a number of other plots as well as a label -- Inflorescence -- and its associated plot. Cédric gained full ownership of Inflorescence with the 2012 vintage and has since incorporated it under the Roses de Jeanne label.

Bouchard does no blending. Rather, he seeks to distill the essence of terroir through single-variety, single parcel, single-vintage wines. He follows biodynamic practices but is certified organic. Yields in his vineyards are vanishingly small -- 26 hl/ha -- making it easier for the vines to produce ripe, high-quality wine grapes. He does careful selection in the vineyard, selling off grapes and wine that do not live up to his exacting standards. With the low yields, Bouchard's wines easily attain 11% - 12% alcohol, unfamiliar territory (without chaptalization) for most other Champagne producers.

Bouchard's grapegrowing and winemaking practices can be encapsulated in the words "just say no":

• No chemicals
• No blending
• No chaptalization
• No selected yeasts (wild-yeast fermentation)
• No fining
• No filtering
• No cold stabilization
• No wood
• No dosage.

Unlike Jacques Selosse, for example, Cédric does not use any oak in the aging of his wines. In his view, wood adds substances to the wine and, in so doing, detracts from the terroir effects. In addition, the use of oak promotes oxidation of the wine and he views oxidative notes in Champagne as a flaw. All of the Bouchard wines are fermented and aged in stainless steel tanks.

Bouchard adds 20 gm of sugar for the liqueur de tirage, well below the norm of 24 gm. This reduced level of sugar yields gas pressure of 4.5 atmospheres (versus an average of 6) after fermentation in the bottle and a "gentle, disappearing mousse."

As shown in the table below, Roses de Jeanne produces seven single-vineyard Champagnes. Due to plot sizes and low yields, production is very small (approximately 15,000 bottles across the entire line).

Table: Roses de Jeanne Wines

Label	Variety/Style	Vineyard Age	V’yd Size	Exposition	Soil	Aging
Côte de Val Vilaine*	Pinot Noir/Blanc de Noir	Planted 1974	1.41 ha	South	Clay and limestone	24 – 28 months on lees
Côte de Béchalin**	Pinot Noir/Blanc de Noir	1981 - 1982	1.5 ha lieu-dit/0.73 ha owned	Southwest	do.	7 years on lees
Les Ursules	Pinot Noir/Blanc de Noir	1974	0.97 ha		do.	3 years on lees
La Haute Lemblé	Chardonnay (5 different rootstocks)/Blanc de Blanc	2002	0.11 ha	South	do.	3 years on lees
Presle	Pinot Noir (10 different rootstocks)/Blanc de Noir	2007	15 rows			3 years on lees
La Bolorée	Pinot Blanc/Blanc de Blanc	1960	0.217 ha	South	Chalky marl and sand	3 years on lees
Le Creux d’Enfer	Pinot Noir/Rosé		0.7 ha lieu-dit/0.032 ha owned	West		3 years on lees

*Inflorescence Blanc de Noir until 2011; **Inflorescence La Parcelle until 2006; many sources to include Walters (Bursting Bubbles) and Liem (Champagne).

Walters describes the above wines thusly:

• Côte de Val Vilaine -- fleshy texture, wonderful purity. and an intense smoky minerality
• Côte de Bachelin -- flesh and texture; plenty of complexity from the time on lees
• Les Urseles -- super concentrated; deep; ripe, dark fruit; smoky complexity
• Le Haute Lemblé -- rich, creamy, nutty wine with great texture
• La Bolorée -- yellow fruits with a saline freshness and hint of lanolin and beeswax

The Rosé (Le Creux d'Enfer) is made by the saignée method. In this case the grapes are foot-stomped and then macerated on the skins and stems for up to 4 days in order to produce the classic color. The wine is then bled off the solids. Walters describes the wine as "fabulously pure" and "silky and yet energetic with crystalline red fruits and subtle nettle and herbal notes."

©Wine -- Mise en abyme

Vouette et Sorbée: Bernard Gautherot's "Great Grower" entrant from the Côte des Bar

Vouette et Sorbée is one of two Côte des Bar producers (the other is Cédric Bouchard) identified as "Great Growers" by Robert Walters in his book Bursting Bubbles. Walters describes the wines of this estate thusly:

These are generous yet savory and complex wines without a drop of dosage. They are wines that make us think of Bertrand Gautherot the farmer -- a farmer who works very closely with nature. They are wines that could not be more authentic or uncompromising. Yet, at the same time, they are textural, generous and delicious. Like the man and the farm on which they are grown, these wines are unique; they should be sought out by those searching for true wines of place.

And the critics are singing from the same hymnal. According to Antonio Galloni (Vinous), "Like many artisan Champagnes, the Vouette et Sorbée are wines first and foremost ... When the wines are on, they are among the most exciting wines being made in Champagne. Bertrand Gautherot crafts gorgeous, handmade wine loaded with personality."

And Peter Liem:

The Champagnes of Vouette et Sorbée are uncompromisingly original, possessing deep, vinous aromas and assertive personalities. These are wines before they are Champagnes, and their intensity of character makes them more suitable for contemplative drinking or to accompanying food than to casual sipping. They are clearly the products of a natural philosophy of viticulture, with all that that implies in the French wine world.

As you have probably garnered from the foregoing, Bernard Gautherot is the Vouette et Sorbée vigneron. Bernard, like a number of the Growers that we have covered in this series, came back to the vines after stints in the wider corporate world; in his case, as a luxury goods designer for Girlan, Chanel, and Dior, respectively. He left that world in 1993 to take over the family estate.

The estate, named after the vineyards directly behind the winery, is located in the Côte des Bar commune of Buxières-sur-Arce, with most of its 5 ha of vineyards therein resident. One vineyard (Chalet) is located in the neighboring commune of Ville-sur-Arce.

Bertrand started out a grower and his passion has always been in the vineyards. He began farming biodynamically in 1998 and gained his certification in 2001. He feels that "biodynamics has encouraged the root structure of his vines to descend deeper into the ground rather than settling for nutrients near the surface" (Peter Liem, Champagne). The small size, and tight geographic footprint, of the vineyards is an advantage for Bertrand in implementing and managing practices that advance the health of his vineyards. The vineyards are detailed in the chart below.

As he has done in many of the fledgling-grower stories, Jacques Selosse also makes an appearance here as he is credited, along with Jerome Prévost, with encouraging Bertrand to make the leap from grower to winemaker. He began making wine in 2001.

Bertrand's winemaking style can be classed as minimalist. The grapes are vinified in oak barrels using indigenous yeasts. Minimal sulfur is applied at harvest. There is no cold stabilization, fining, or filtering and no dosage is added.

Fidelè is a Blanc de Noir made from grapes sourced from the Fonnet (mostly) and Biaunes vineyards. Walters sees this wine as showing vibrant red and blue fruits, having racy acidity, and a minerality that runs the length of the palate.

Source: nettarietruschi.it

Blanc d'Argile is a Blanc de Blanc made from low-yield, ripe Chardonnay grapes grown in the Biaunes vineyard. Beginning in 2019 this wine will be further fortified with fruit from the Vouette vineyard. Walters describes this wine as "Super mineral, nutty, and stone-fruited" with some red fruit notes. He further finds it salty and smoky with good texture.

Source: plusbellelavigne

The Saignée de Sorbée is a "deliciously sappy, peppery Rosé that can be thought of as a light red wine." The grapes are subjected to lengthy carbonic maceration and extended fermentation in oak barrels. Indigenous yeasts are used for both first and second fermentations.

©Wine -- Mise en abyme

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.

©Wine -- Mise en abyme

Jacques Lassaigne: Making Great Grower Champagne in Montgueux, the edge of the known (Côte des Blancs) universe

Montgueux is a tiny hill of pure chalk that, even though 100 km to the south of Epernay -- and being only 12 km northeast of Troyes -- is classified into the Côte des Blancs growing area by the Union des Maisons de Champagne. In addition to its remove from its Côte des Blancs counterparts, Montgueux's grape growing history is fairly recent, stretching back, as it does, to the 1950s and 1960s when negociants, seeking new product sources, encouraged the locals to begin growing grapes. It is in this remote, fledgling, Côte des Blancs outpost that Emmanuel Lassaigne (of the label Jacques Lassaigne) crafts the wines that have led to Robert Walters (Bursting Bubbles) numbering him among Champagne's Great Growers.

Montgueux
Montgueux falls into the Aube Department administratively but does notr share the Kimmeridgian soil and Pinot Meunier variety of the Côte des Bar growers. In contrast to the Côte des Bar, Montgueux's soil is comprised of chalk from the Turonian age and is, according to Lassaigne, really a geologic continuation of the Côte des Blancs chalk -- even though 15 million years older. The Montgueux chalk is 60 metres depth and is endowed with silex inclusions.

A total of 209.3 ha is planted to vine with 90.25% allocated to Chardonnay, 9.22% to Pinot Noir, and the remainder to Pinot Meunier (This Chardonnay dominance is a hallmark for Côte des Blancs vineyards.). The vineyards are southeast-facing and this, coupled with their far-south location, results in the production of fully ripened grapes. Over 50% of the grape production is sold to Champagne Houses.

The Estate and the Wines
As mentioned, vine planting in Montgueux is a fairly recent occurrence. Jacques Lassaigne (Emmanuel's father) began planting vines in 1964 and sold his fruit to the Houses. He began holding back some of his grapes for wine production in the 1970s but at this time he only made still wine. He began producing Champagne in 1980. Most of the wine was sold at the "cellar door."

The family business was not doing well so Emmanuel came back home in 1999 to aid in its rescue (at the time he was working in manufacturing. At that time he had no formal training in viticulture or viniculture nor had he apprenticed at the feet of Jacques Selosse (as have many of his peers). Rather he worked by trial and error and experimentation and has been rewarded with the acclaim accorded  his wines today.His first vintage was in 2002.

The estate holding is a single 3.5-ha block in the Le Cotet vineyard. The vineyard is farmed organically, eschewing fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides. The grass in the vineyard is cultivated between vines and rolled flat between rows. Vines are Guyot-trained.

In an effort to tap into all of the terroir opportunities on Montgueux, Emmanuel supplements the estate fruit with grapes purchased from a few small growers. In order to ensure that the purchased product approaches the level of quality of his grapes, Emmanuel's requirements are as follows:

• The source vineyard must be located in Montgueux
• The source vineyard must have a south or southeast exposure
• The source vineyard must rest on chalky soils
• The vineyard must be managed by a good grower who works effectively in the vineyard
• The fruit must issue from old vines (45 - 60 years old).

As a result of purchasing fruit, Jacques Lassaigne is classed as a negociant-manipulant.

The Lassaigne portfolio of wines is shown below.  This array has recently been supplemented with a vintage Champagne called Clos Sainte-Sophie.

Lassaigne traditional portfolio (Source: la-champagnerie.com)

The grapes for the Lassaigne cuvees are hand-harvested, destemmed, and then gently pressed. A small amount of sulfur is added to the mix at this time to retard oxidation. Each parcel is processed separately. The must is vinified in stainless steel tanks (or barrels) with indigenous yeasts and the wine aged according to the practice for that cuvee.The treatment for the individual cuvees is shown in the table below.

Characteristics	Les Vignes de Montgueux NV	Le Cotet NV	Millésimé	La Colline Inspirée NV	Clos Sainte-Sophie*
Fruit source	7 – 9 parcels; 1/3 purchased fruit	Estate, single vyd.’ Single plot	Le Cotet, Les Paluets, La Grande	La Grande Côte, Bouillerate	Clos St Sophie
Vine age (yrs)	35	Planted 1964 - 1967	40 - 50	45	Planted 1968 - 1975
Yield (hl/ha)	35 - 45	45 - 60		45 - 60
Fermentation vessel	Mostly tank (15% in wood)		SS tank	Old barrels
Fermentation	Indigenous yeasts	Indigenous yeasts	Indigenous yeasts	Indigenous yeasts	Indigenous yeasts
Aging	Aged in new and old barrels for 12 – 24 months	12 – 24 months on lees in stainless steel and used barrels (4 – 20 years)		24 – 36 months on lees; old barrels	6 mos in barrel
Blend	Last three vintages with greater amounts of last two; over 50% reserve	Significant % of base-year wine plus small %s from prior vintages; perpetual blend		Two vintages
Sur Lie	1 – 5 years	3 – 5 years		3 – 5 years

*1.2 ha plot surrounded by a hedge
Compiled from various sources.

The characteristics of two of the Lassaigne Champagnes, as seen by Walters, are as follows:

• Les Vignes de Montgueux -- a racy, salty, iodine-noted wine which is at once deliciously refreshing yet having good depth and some exotic notes
• Le Cotet -- a racy, mineral, citrusy, complex wine.

©Wine -- Mise en abyme