The Côte des Bar is Champagne’s laboratory. Everywhere you look, growers are experimenting with new blends and techniques, often out of sheer curiosity and always with plenty of conviction.
A revival of historic grape varieties, organic and biodynamic practices, single-vineyard wines, egg-shaped tanks, amphorae, soleras—it’s all here. Even big companies get in on the fun.
The Côte des Bar is in the Aube department, which is the southernmost region for Champagne production and the biggest hemp grower in Europe. Grapes are the No. 2 crop of the Aube, and they’ve long been a major source for the producers of Reims and Epernay, especially Pinot Noir. Increasingly, however, growers are releasing their own Champagne labels.
Bar-sur-Aube and Bar-sur-Seine, including its heart of Les Riceys, are landscapes of river valleys and steep slopes that support vines planted on the same Kimmeridgian soil as Chablis. It could be part of Burgundy, and, in fact, Chablis is closer than Epernay and Reims. But this is Champagne. Confident in what they make and not afraid to push boundaries, these producers with rebellious streaks are out to create excitement. They’re succeeding.
Arnaud Gallimard
Celebrating Pinot Noir
Pinot Noir is the key to Gallimard Champagnes, according to Arnaud Gallimard. The 28-year-old son of winemaker Didier Gallimard, Arnaud travels the world to promote and sell the 150,000 bottles the house produces each year from the family’s 29 acres.
Les Riceys in Bar-sur-Seine, where the Gallimards call home, is Pinot Noir central. The mix of clay and chalk in the soil of the rolling wood-topped hills around the village is well-suited to the variety.
“We are surrounded by Pinot Noir,” says Arnaud. “It’s 90% of what we grow. We have been able to perfect it.”
Of course, subject to the experimentation that seems to be endemic in the Aube, the Gallimards have four amphorae they brought from Tuscany in 2014.
Even the house’s nonvintage cuvées are not quite what they seem—Gallimard foregoes the typical blending system and instead makes two Cuvée Réserves.
“We didn’t have a style of wine in mind,” he says. “We just wanted to see what would happen.”
The result was Cuvée Amphoressence Brut Nature. Bone-dry and aged six months in amphora, it fills out the freshness of the Pinot Noir with an oxidative richness.
When it came to creating a rosé Champagne, the house didn’t choose between the two typical production methods for the style. Usually, producers gain color either through the addition of red wine or from the red grape’s skins through a process known as saignée.
Instead, they blend the two techniques and add 20% Chardonnay planted on pure chalk sites in the vineyard, which Arnaud says, “give us a wonderful aromatic quality.”
Even the house’s standard nonvintage cuvées are not quite what they seem. Champagne Gallimard foregoes the typical blending system and instead makes two Cuvée Réserves, one 100% Chardonnay and one 100% Pinot Noir.
“We want to bring out the terroir in each grape variety,” he says.
Olivier Horiot
Experimenter-in-Chief
Olivier Horiot is 45, but when it comes to winemaking, he’s like a kid in a candy store. He can’t stop trying new things.
“I like experiments,” says Horiot. “I like to try things out. It’s so much fun.”
He may be in Champagne, but for Horiot, still wines came first.
“When I took over in 1999 from my father, Serge, I only made still wines, Coteaux Champenois and Rosé des Riceys,” he says. “I didn’t make Champagnes until 2004.”
Horiot now makes Champagnes, including some from rare varieties that have almost disappeared, like Arbane. His 100% Arbane Champagne is, fittingly, called Cuvée Arbane. Next year, he will highlight Pinot Gris.
Another of his Champagnes, 5 Sens, is a blend of Pinot Noir, Pinot Meunier, Chardonnay, Pinot Blanc and Arbane.
While still wines came first, Horiot now makes Champagnes, including some from rare varieties that have almost disappeared.
“I am attempting to understand my vineyards, so I make single-variety wines to see how they relate to the land,” says Horiot. “If I was commercial, I would only be making three wines.” At last count, he makes eight.
But it’s Rosé des Riceys that fascinates him most. This dark-colored rosé made from Pinot Noir, almost like a light red wine, has had its own appellation for just over 70 years.
“We vinify the grapes on the skins until the tannins start tasting,” he says. “Then we stop because we want a soft wine.” Despite that, it can also age. Currently, Horiot sells the 2013 vintage.
Of course, there are more plans for the future of the house. He wants the estate to become a polyculture, with other plants and cows for the biodynamic mixes he uses.
The next time you find a bottle of Horiot’s wines, maybe his single-vineyard Sève, his Métisse or the Soléra, just consider what marvelous wonder he might create next.
Nathalie Falmet
Merging Passion and Science
“I can’t talk until after four,” says Nathalie Falmet when asked when would be a good time. “I’ll be out in the vines.”
Falmet, 50, is a trained chemist who not only manages her namesake Champagne house, but also runs her own laboratory as a consulting enologist. While her background provides insight into the full range of winemaking techniques, it’s her eight-acre vineyard that’s her true passion.
After inheriting the plot from her parents who sold grapes to the local cooperative, she released her first Champagnes in 2009. She now spends 90% of her time on her wines.
But the chemist in Falmet hasn’t gone away. In the tiny winery behind her house in Rouvres-les-Vignes in Bar-sur-Aube, she has an amphora because, “I wanted to understand the vortex effect on the lees inside a traditional amphora shape.”
Falmet says it explains why amphora-fermented wines have so much richness and intensity, and how they get the oxidative effect of wood fermentation.
Great attention to detail is in line with her winemaking style, which is to best express terroir in her Champagnes.
This attention to detail is in line with her winemaking style, which is to best express terroir in her Champagnes.
“I want to put the year, the grape variety and the terroir in my wines,” she says. “I want to put the exchange between the Kimmeridgian chalk soil and the grapes into what I produce, and then I want to celebrate the difference the year brings.”
While a vintage label is, in Falmet’s opinion, “just a bureaucratic declaration,” many of her wines, such as her single-vineyard Le Val Cornet, come from a single year.
For those that don’t, Falmet employs a solera system, operated since 2008. It’s a perpetual reserve that’s replenished each year and drawn down for her nonvintage Brut, which represents the bulk of her annual output of 30,000 bottles.
But there will always be smaller-run offerings like her single-variety releases, each which amount to around 100 bottles.
“I love to do different things,” she says. “I adore making new wines.”
Michel Drappier
Protecting the Future
Champagne Drappier is the heavy hitter of the Côte des Bar. Founded in 1808, the firm is based in Bar-sur-Aube.
Now 60 years old, Chief Executive and Winemaker Michel Drappier has been in the business since he was 15. His three children, Charline, Hugo and Antoine, represent the family firm’s eighth generation. The family holds about 135 acres of vineyards, with about 120 more under contract, throughout the Aube and the Marne to the north.
History is what’s on Drappier’s mind. Vineyards in Urville, his home village, date to the 12th century, when Saint Bernard of Clairvaux brought Pinot Noir from Burgundy.
Drappier’s Grande Sendrée reflects the balance between the preservation of history and forward thinking.
“This was [the heart of] Champagne at the time,” says Drappier. The region’s capital city back then was Troyes, not Reims. About 35 miles away from Urville, Troyes was where the Counts of Champagne lived.
“The Aube is the original Champagne vineyard,” he says. “And we have stayed faithful to Saint Bernard and his Pinot Noir ever since.”
Drappier is known for rare large bottles and special cuvées. Quattuor is a blend of Arbane, Petit Meslier, Blanc Vrai (a.k.a. Pinot Blanc) and Chardonnay. Meanwhile, Cuvée Charles de Gaulle, made from 80% Pinot Noir and 20% Chardonnay, commemorates the former French president’s preference to serve the style at his home in nearby Colombey-les-deux-Églises.
Drappier’s Grande Sendrée is a blend of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay that reflects the balance between the preservation of history and forward thinking.
“It comes from a vineyard that was planted on a south-facing slope after a massive fire destroyed both the local forest and the village of Urville,” says Drappier. Part of it is now made in an egg-shaped wooden fermenter, introduced for the 2012 vintage.
Indeed, the future is underway here. The winery became 100% carbon neutral in 2018, an effort that was bolstered by solar and wind power. Biodynamic vineyards, limited sulfur use and even electric tractors work to the greater good of the environment.
“When we had children and then grandchildren, we wanted to protect their health,” says Drappier. “It is our investment for the next generations.”
Jean-Christophe Gremillet
Creating a New Tradition
Forty years is not a long time in the history of a Champagne house that produces a half-million bottles per year. Yet, the ascent of the Gremillet family in such a period has been impressive.
And it is a family affair. Jean-Christophe Gremillet, 44, is winemaker and president of the company. His sister Anne, 38, is director general in charge of marketing, while his 63-year-old father, Jean-Michel, looks after the vines.
For Jean-Christophe, it’s winemaking that he loves. “My favorite moment is when I draw the wine from the tanks after fermentation,” he says. “Then I can really see the full potential of that year.”
The Gremillets are planners, evolving from tiny vineyard owners to grower-négociants in just a few decades.
While the family has a history of grape growing, “looking back, it seems like destiny,” says Anne Gremillet. “When my grandmother, Lulu, bought just under an acre of vines in 1978…there was no thought that we would have 103 acres today.”
The family is proud of Lulu’s heritage in their Bar-sur-Seine community of Les Riceys. The region is capable of producing wines under three appellations: Champagne, Coteaux Champenois still wine and the local specialty of Rosé des Riceys.
“We are always looking for freshness,” he says to describe the Champagnes he produces. The one exception in the house’s range of seven Champagnes is Cuvée Évidence. It’s lightly wooded and boasts a more pronounced yeasty character than the other wines.
Then there’s the new baby, the Clos Rocher single vineyard. Planted to three-and-a-half acres of Pinot Noir, this walled, organically cultivated vineyard is a first for Les Riceys. Named after an ancestor, a new single-vineyard cuvée was made in 2013 and is set to be released this year.
The Gremillets are planners, evolving from tiny vineyard owners to grower-négociants in just a few decades. They planted an arboretum with trees from many of the countries where the family sells Champagnes, and they buy grapes from the rest of Champagne, including Chardonnay from the Côte des Blancs.
The future seems bright for this young Champagne superstar.
Last Updated: May 5, 2023
