In Champagne we have Maisons, cooperatives and producers. Among them, we have the modernly called great growers, who want to explore their terroir. In general, they are young people who have inherited their lands from their parents, and as a rule they have at some point gone through an internship with Anselme Selosse – the greatest exponent of terroir champagne and the oxidative style, based in Avize. And in this medium, there is a star: the horse.
Yes, the horse. The passion for them is so great that one of them reached a unique level: having a champagne with his name. And it's not just any champagne, it's VENUS, a vintage brut nature blanc de blancs grand cru made by Pascal Agrapart in Avize. All of it is made from the La Fosse vineyard, which to this day is cultivated by just one man and one horse. And the first horse to work on it was called Venus. Another horse that has yet to earn the distinction of having a label in his honor is Saumur, who works his way through the vineyards under Alexander Chartogne of Chartogne Taillet in Merfy. Well, but after all, why is the horse so important in this scenario? As we know, the basis of terroir is precisely the soil – in addition, of course, to the entire environment around it. The composition of the soil in champagne is something valuable, and its variations determine, along with the insolation of the vineyards, the quality of the grapes. And growers struggle to keep the soil in optimal condition, preserving its water infiltration and nutrient distribution. For this, the less compacted the soil, the better its expression in the wine. And, in order not to compact it, the lighter the machinery, the better – and nothing is lighter in the vineyard today than the horse. The concern with cultivating the land is a hallmark of a new generation of producers in Champagne, who have come to adopt a stance closer to neighbor Burgundy.
We already have several wines with a local character, reflecting the terroir of each village and each vineyard, going far beyond the desired batch-by-batch standardization of Grandes Casas. The years ahead tend to be promising, with more and more champagnes reflecting their terroir of origin – as every great wine around the world wants to be.
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