The Grower Champagne may have only become the shot heard around the world in the 80's, and yet what we have today bears testament to the fact that the Grower Champagne revolution is less a struck match than it is a multi-generational build up of courage, risk-taking, resilience and sweat that led up till the point that the world finally paid attention.

The Greatest Grower Champagne You've Never Heard Of

Even those who dabble in the more artisanal Grower Champagne scene may be unfamiliar with the likes of Vilmart & Cie - yet, and I kid you not, this is a house that has more than its fair share of incredible acclaim attached to it. Now you might be wondering "If it's such a star, why haven't I heard about it?", and the truth is that fifth-generation Laurent Champs is always described as a soft-spoken man who prefers to focus on his craft and less on promotion. And so because he won't do the talking, we'll just have to lay out some qualified individuals to do so in lieu of that.

Laurent Champs of the house Vilmart & Cie.

“Laurent Champs works entirely in cask or barrique, with meticulously and organically farmed fruit from Rilly-la-Montagne and its immediate neighborhood. The best Vilmart cuvées are among the most complex, powerful, and structured wines in Champagne.” - Robert Parker, who also named Vilmart as one of his top 15 Champagne producers of all time.

“Vilmart & Cie is not only one of the greatest grower-estates in Champagne, but one of the finest Champagne producers of any type in the Region.” - Peter Liem

“Vilmart & Cie has a cult following for its refined, elegant Champagnes.” - Food & Wine

The wines are also a mainstay at world renowned establishments such as Eleven Madison Park, The French Laundry, The Modern and Balthazar, as well as Otto e Mezzo and Ecriture.

Yet perhaps of highest authority, we have this comment from u/busted_maracas on the Reddit thread r/Champagne's "Best grower champagnes ?",

If a forum commentator says so, I'd argue it's the highest form of authentic flattery. Enthusiasm you'll never fine in any wine journal.

So Who Is Vilmart & Cie? 

Vilmart & Cie finds itself in the quaint commune of Rilly-la-Montagne (a Premier Cru nevertheless), just 20 minutes south of Reims by car. In this small and sleepy hamlet, Pinot Noir reigns supreme, and yet step into Vilmart's vineyards and you're much more likely to find Chardonnay - it's what gives Vilmart's Champagnes fresh elegance, higher acidity and more finesse. Vilmart's winery sits right by the vineyards, which Laurent lauds as greatly beneficial for him to keep a close eye on the vines, making sure that his organically farmed soils are healthy and the fruit to be harvested are at peak ripeness. 

“We are lucky to have vineyards so close to the winery,... the vineyards are separated into just 12 plots. But on this scale, it could be as many as 70 plots spread out. It enables us to do our vineyard work in a timely and precise manner.” says Laurent.

One vineyard stands out at Rilly-la-Montagne.

Beyond the unusual practice of having 60% Chardonnay and 40% Pinot Noir in an area that really cares much more for the latter, another peculiar aspect of Vilmart's is that the parcel of vines are 11 hectares large - that's not much in any other wine region, yet in Champagne, it is far more common for the 19,000 plus growers to only have about 2 hectares to themselves, hence it's long made more economical sense to simply serve as a grower, with the fruit produced sold to co-ops, mostly ending up with one of the large houses. On top of that, Vilmart even has a few plots just over in the neighbouring village of Villers-Allerand, all of which forms 12 different parcels.

The OG Grower Champagne.

Champagne Vilmart & Cie got its start in 1890 when Désiré Vilmart had first started estate bottling his own Champagnes under the family name - this was almost a century earlier than Laurent's close friend Jacques Selosse, a man often attributed as the hero leading the charge of the Grower Champagne revolution. And so it must be considered that the practice was incredibly rare in the days of Vilmart's early beginnings.

Yet as the family has been able to retain its vineyards through successive generations (French inheritance laws are largely responsible for the sheer number of small plots as siblings are by default to receive equal parts of a family's vineyards), it has always kept a sufficient scale of some 9,000 cases of Champagne produced annually from its 11 hectare vineyards (all Premier Cru) that has proved to make sense economically to remain an independent Grower Champagne producer (or a 'Recoltant Manipulant'). This all has enshrined Vilmart & Cie as one of the most highly-regarded pioneers of the Grower Champagne movement.

Wants to be a race car driver or a pianist, ends up a remarkable Champagne maker.

The Wine Reflects Its Maker - Getting To Know Laurent Champs

Today, the house is led by fifth-generation Laurent Champs, who has been at it since 1989. Yet never one for the spotlight, Laurent would firmly admit that his role has been more of a custodian than that of a groundbreaker. 

“Today’s Vilmart was built by my father, René. He started organic farming inthe vineyard and introduced large casks and non-malolactic fermentation practices into the winemaking, which were unusual in those days. These are now the core pillars of Vilmart.” says Laurent.

Laurent and his son Thomas.

Despite hailing from a prestigious winegrowing family, Laurent had in his earlier years harboured hopes that lay outside the family's vineyards. ‘I wanted to be a racing driver or a pianist,’ says Laurent, and yet in his over three-and-a-half decades helming Vilmart & Cie, Laurent has done an impeccable job of maintaining the high standards that comes with the family name.

As was the case for Laurent, he too did not insist on his children working the vines and riddling the bottles, yet his son and daughter today find themselves working to build the next generation of Vilmart's story.

"Make wine first and bubbles afterwards." 

The Making Of Champagne At Vilmart & Cie

For Laurent, the work starts in the fields. Vilmart has pretty much every organic certification you can think of, and most notably is a member of Ampelos, an organisation which helps to promote organic and sustainable viticulture. Yet of course Laurent's commitment to such practices goes beyond any certification. Laurent's practices focuses on working with nature, as opposed to fighting against it - he lays the groundwork by planting the vineyards over with cover crows, doing gentle plowing to ensure sufficient aeration and reducing nitrogen buildups, and of course abstaining from the use of any herbicides and chemical fertilisers. Thus it's been critical for Laurent to have the winery close by the vineyards, which allows him to be responsive to the changing conditions facing the vines - this has allowed Vilmart to continue producing even in the toughest vintages that have more recently stalled other producers.

In the cellars, Laurent has two main cards up his sleeve - conducting much of his vinification in oak barrels, and the active avoidance of malolactic fermentation. This has allowed Vilmart's Champagnes to demonstrate depth and complexity, focused yet with poise. Fermentation and ageing takes place in oak casks, with the non-vintage going into large foudres, and the rest in smaller Burgundy casks - Laurent is said to be a master when it comes to his finesse in using woods with his wines. “The heart of our house is fermentation and ageing in wood only. Everybody today wants to use oak; it’s very trendy, but we started in 1970 before everybody,” says Laurent. For him, it is all about allowing for micro-oxygenation to take place with the wines. In these oak barrels, the wines sit for 10 months, with malolactic fermentation blocked naturally by the retention of malic acid - this serves to preserve the freshness, density and tension of the wine.

At Vilmart, the ageing time on the lees is also a significant factor in how it's defined its Champagnes. From 2 to 8 years on the lees, along with batonnage, the house's Champagnes continue to develop more character. Using a traditional Cocquard vertical press, Laurent adds a low dosage of about 6-9 gm/l (equivalent to that of brut) - no pump is done, with the entire process aimed to be as gentle as possible, largely aided by gravity.

After all that work is done, Laurent advises that his Champagnes will begin to "fully speak" some 7 to 9 years post-disgorgement.

The Vilmart & Cie winery sits next to its vineyards.

And with all that said, today we're incredibly fortunate to try one of Vilmart's rarest and more recent advancements - the Grand Cellier Oenotheque T 13!

Let's go!

Champagne Review: Vilmart & Cie Oenotheque T13 Grand Cellier Champagne Premier Cru

The Vilmart & Cie Oenotheque T 13 is said to be one of Vilmart's most prized projects as of late. It keeps consistent with the classic Vilmart 70% Chardonnay and 30% Pinot Noir, and is a blend based on the 2012 vintage (50%), with reserve wines from the 2011 and 2010 vintages (the other 50%). It's entirely harvested from the Rilly-la-Montagne 1er Cru, fermented and aged in barrel, with no malolactic fermentation, with a full 7 years ageing on the lees. Incredibly long ageing here on the lees, which should pick up with it lots of character. It's been disgorged January 2020. Worth noting is that the "T" here in the name refers to the calendar year of its bottling (or tirage), which was done in 2013 using the 2012 harvest.

Tasting Notes

Colour: Honey Gold

Aroma: It opens up bready and buttery, with toasted breadcrumbs, Danish butter cookies, and also a gentle yet thicker bit of doughiness. Quickly the acidity begins to come through in the form of green fruits, green apples and gooseberries. Beneath that is a layer of savoury umaminess, with just a few drops of oyster sauce. As it sits, those big, bready aromas turn increasingly buttery, giving a shokupan sort of deep buttery sweetness. There's a light yeastiness that hovers around its outline, fresh and raw, with an overall lively intensity.

Taste: Here it's rich, medium-bodied, feels fuller yet retains that lightness with this bright, floral and sweet profile. It's more syrupy here, with a zesty bit of acidity, containing elderflowers, green apple cores, a spritz of lime juice and lemon oils, as well as lime zest. There's some apple kombucha in the middle, with again that prominent savouriness and meatiness of charcuterie oils. It's off-dry, moderately sweet, and as it sits, it again turns towards Danish butter cookies, before taking the form of a crisp dry apple cider into the finish.

Finish: The elderflowers, green apples and ripened apples all persist into the finish, almost taking the form of a Riesling. It's long and intense, rich yet concentrated and with great structure and definition. That buttered toast quality continues on. Finally it's clean and crisp on the finish, where as the richness subsides, more mineral qualities begin to show up, offering up a more savoury and saline aspect. That citrusy zing of lime zest and lime peels continue to stay on, before more of that bready doughy sweetness stages a comeback.

My Thoughts 

This is a big and powerful Champagne! Within its fuller body and masculine structure contains layers of bold and intense flavour. On the surface you get a rich and dense outer core of honeyed and doughy sweetness, filled in by toasted breadcrumbs, pastries and Danish butter cookies. This itself feels like it could've been a full Champagne on its own. Yet it peels away to reveal this lively and vibrant, yet equally rich and concentrated acidity of green fruits and citrus zest - again, it's so rich, intense and powerful, it could've just been a full other Champagne altogether just this layer alone. And that peels off! A deeper layer of savoury umaminess of oyster sauce, kombucha, charcuterie meatiness, with no loss of power, boldness or richness. It's as if three Champagnes were perfectly layered into one!

Nevertheless I have to say that I found that it was ultimately that incredibly vivacious green acidity of limes that really stole the show. It's sweet, tart and incredibly fragrant, almost of bergamot and potpourri, yet juicy and rich - for me, this was what defined the character of the Vilmart Oenotheque T 13. And at no point does the acidity get overwhelming - it remains perfectly in balance, it's sufficiently sharp to hold off the bready brioche richness. That savouriness too was simply hearty and wholesome, almost like a side of pepperoni or saucisson. There's so much to say about this expression, yet ultimately it must be caveated that this is a Champagne that requires patience and attention to truly appreciate the details - you have to give it time, close your eyes and peel away layer after layer, which will reveal an incredibly complex Champagne that is so remarkably thoughtfully crafted.

As Reddit user u/busted_maracas said, Vilmart & Cie... this motherf***er knows what's up.