Robert Moncuit Les Vozemieux Grand Cru Blanc de Blancs Oger 2017

The Moncuit family boasts an almost 150-year-long saga of stewardship in Champagne's renowned Côtes des Blancs. Since 1889, they have farmed prestigious sites throughout the sub-region and, in the late 1920s, began bottling their house cuveé under the leadership of Robert Moncuit. When Robert passed away in 1987, his daughter, Francoise, took the helm before passing the baton to her son, Pierre, in 2000, who continues to run the show today. Pierre is head over heels for Blanc de Blanc Chardonnays and prides himself on the thoughtful care of his family's ten hectares of vines. He farms all parcels without the use of pesticides or herbicides, hand-harvests and sorts them, and vinifies them separately to achieve peak terroir expression. Pierre takes his time with fermentation and aging, resting wines for a minimum of three years and up to five years for vintage Champagnes. In tasting the Robert Moncuit Champagnes, the attention to detail is evident in the nuance and finesse of the wines.

Just south of Épernay, a 12-mile-long, chalk-covered ridge rises from the countryside. The hill is covered in 7,500 acres of vines, 97% of which is Chardonnay. This hill is the Côtes des Blancs, the most iconic sub-region of Champagne's smallest major growing area (also of the same name). While one might assume that the region was named for the white grapes that decorate the hillside, the Côtes des Blancs takes its moniker from the bright white soils rich with chalk. These unique soils are prime for growing Chardonnay. The chalk provides a reliable water source for the vines; it's porous enough to prevent them from being waterlogged and absorbent enough to retain water during dry spells. The white color of the soil also reflects heat from the sun up into the canopy, which aids in fruit ripening. Champagne is generally a cold-growing region, so this added boost of heat and light is hugely beneficial.

At the center of the Côtes des Blancs is the quaint village of Oger, where all the vineyards are Chardonnay and classified as Grand Cru. Winemakers and sommeliers prize the Blanc de Blancs from Oger for being mineral-driven yet rich and round in comparison to the acid-driven BdBs of its southern neighbor, Le Mesnil-sur-Oger. Les Vozemieux is a lieu-dit in Oger, and Pierre's family holds a mere 2/3s of a hectare of the 70-year-old vines within its limits, from which they craft this Champagne. He first experimented with a "single-vineyard" wine from Les Vozemieux in 2010, primarily out of curiosity about how it would compare to the wine he vinted from another lieu-dit just south in Mesnil. Pierre ferments the wine in barrel, undergoing full malolactic fermentation and resting in barrel until the summer following harvest. It is bottled unfiltered with almost zero dosage and ages in bottle under cork until release.