Searching for our first Champagne Producer

Finding a Champagne producer sounds simple but in reality, it took six months of planning and three very full days on the road.

We visited seven producers across Champagne, travelling from the Marne Valley to the Côte des Blancs, Montagne de Reims and finally the Côte des Bar.

Every stop taught us something different.

Our first visit came almost straight off the plane in the Marne Valley, the home of Pinot Meunier.

For years, Pinot Meunier played third fiddle to Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, but that's changing quickly.

Some of the most exciting Grower Champagnes we tasted were built around this grape. The wines had incredible fruit, freshness and drinkability.

From there we travelled into the Côte des Blancs, one of the world's great Chardonnay regions.
Village after village is devoted almost entirely to Chardonnay, producing elegant, mineral. Champagnes with remarkable precision.

It was fascinating to see how much influence the soils had on the wines.

The following day we headed into the Montagne de Reims, where Pinot Noir becomes the dominant grape.

We visited several outstanding producers, all working with the same philosophy we'd seen throughout the trip: small family estates, organic farming where possible and a real focus on expressing individual vineyards.

One of the highlights was meeting Sophie and Franck at Domaine Méa.

We'll share more about them in a future article, but it was immediately obvious we'd found something special.

The biggest surprise came later in the trip. After leaving Chablis, we travelled south into the Côte des Bar.

Geographically, it feels very different to northern Champagne.

The soils here are the same Kimmeridgian limestone found in Chablis, and the wines almost feel Burgundian in character. They have incredible texture, freshness and energy.

One producer in particular, La Borderie, completely blew me away. The wines were pure, chalky and beautifully balanced. They're definitely a producer we'll continue watching closely.

By the end of three days we'd tasted dozens of Champagnes and visited seven producers.

We arrived looking for one producer.

We left with a much deeper understanding of where Champagne is heading. And that's probably the greatest value of these buying trips.