Chartogne-Taillet

"Based in the village of Merfy, in the Montagne de Reims, Alexandre Chartogne has been at the helm of his 11-hectare family estate since 2006 and has quickly become one of the grower Champagne movement’s most important figures. It is symbolic that the first wine Chartogne produced is Les Barres, made from old, ungrafted vines.

"It was Anselme Selosse who taught me that a winegrower's responsibility is to understand his terroir. So, I came home to Merfy and started digging holes," recounts Alexandre Chartogne. He discovered that his soils were very different from those of the Côte des Blancs, finding inter-fingering layers of marine sands, loess, sandstone and clay in around 10 different configurations in his different parcels. Those soil variations, he noted, corresponded to the delimitation of Merfy's climats, and looking back to the village's pre-revolutionary history, Chartogne attributes that precision to the Benedictine monks who once farmed this region—harking back to a terroir-focused viticultural era when wine growing in Champagne had more in common with wine growing in Burgundy. Today, Alexandre Chartogne is working to recapture that spirit through single-site vinification, producing six single-vineyard wines from his home village. Recently, he also created a Special Edition (Hors Série) from Avize, a village where Chartogne acquired his first viticultural and oenological knowledge.

Chartogne is a thoughtful man, seriously committed to letting each of his various parcels express its own identity. In the vineyards, this means prioritizing soil health by avoiding herbicides and synthetic fertilizers (the only non-organic product used is potassium phosphonate, for mildew control). His soils are cultivated—half of his parcels are plowed by horse and the other half by a light tractor. In the winery, fermentation occurs with native yeasts (although selected yeast is used for the prise de mousse). While he previously vinified some 80% of his wines in wood and the rest in stainless steel, since expanding his cellar in 2019, Chartogne now works exclusively with oak barrels. He uses mostly 228-liter barrels and some demi-muids, purchasing new barrels from seven different coopers and reusing them, which translates in even greater precision. Sulfites are used during pressing and later if any weaknesses are detected. Dosage is minimal and is always determined through blind tastings. All this converts into a vinous, incisive style that’s increasingly concentrated and tightly wound. Clearly differentiated by site, Chartogne's wines sometimes show a delicate patina from their time in barrel, but that tends to integrate with a little bottle age. Like the wines of his mentor, Anselme Selosse, these are mineral- and soil-driven rather than fruit-forward, despite their scale and power. “The aging and longevity of a wine are tied to the terroir and ripe grapes. The organic components (fruit) will age with time, but the mineral components will endure,” remarks Chartogne." - Kristaps Karklins, robertparker.com