While Champagne runs in his bloodstream, Alexandre Lamblot has chosen a deviated path from that of his family’s tradition - one which is in its fifth century of tradition. For a decade now, Alexandre has managed a small parcel of vineyards - about 4 hectares spread among the Petite Montagne de Reims, Massif de Saint Thierry and Vallee de l’Ardre - of his own, with a Meunier-dominant focus that you would assume he’s had impacted upon him by his mentor, Jerome Prevost.
When I say a deviation, it is such because of the time-consuming, bordering-on-the-insane levels of commitment that Alexandre has to his land. Ok, yes, small yields by way of very careful pruning. Agreed, harvesting everything by hand, making sure to not cause any of the grapes any harm by stacking too many in one crate, that seems a bit extra. But it’s when we start talking about his practice of isolating each vineyard’s yeast strains, re-creating them and using those for the secondary fermentation, that’s around the time some of us may hop off the train. Well, don’t - the commitment is staggering and the resultant wines deserving of his tireless exactitude.
If you’re having trouble framing just what all of that means in terms of the final output, what I would encourage you to imagine is that Alexandre doesn’t start out his harvest thinking of creating something sparkling; no, the mission is only to create the finest wine possible, and then decide if it should continue its life as a wine with a delicately fine mousse. The wines are aged in barrels common in Burgundy - 228L to 600L, some 140L feuillettes like you’d see in Chablis (cough, Raveneau, cough) - with the occasional concrete egg making an appearance.
In what’s become common with our favorite producers across the globe, but more noticeably so in a cooler region such as Champagne, is the outward appearance of their vineyards juxtaposed to their more corporate neighbors. As winter’s grasp loosens its grip, the lush green tones grow brighter in Alexandre’s vineyards, rife with life as you see the wildly diverse range of plants and animal life play symbiotically. Vitiforestry is active in all of his vineyards (some 600-plus fruit trees among all of his plots), with all sorts of planted or naturally-occurring cover crops oozing energy, providing the chance for those nearby “other” vineyards to glare with envy nearly as green as Alex’s plots glow.
The fruit is harvested only when perfectly ripe; any berries deemed less than perfect are sent off, though you imagine given his meticulous nature, they’ll find a different use. With a solid eleven months in barrels (usually about 20% new), each wine develops a depth rather uncommon through Champagne as a whole, and the final sparkling wines - when allowed to go through a secondary fermentation - are wildly complex, with a microscopic mousse that serves to only elevate the aromas, tastes and sensations of each sip.
To me, there are influences in these wines, whether intended or merely observed by yours truly: surely Prevost has indoctrinated Alexandre further into Meunier’s otherworldly potentials; I see bits of another Alexandre - Chartogne - in the conscientious separation of his plots, and in some of the choices of locale in the Northern regions of Champagne. And then there is one more - Cedric Bouchard, whose wines mirror the quiet intensity, the textural aspects and the thought of “Champagne” being a region, not a drink; that is to say, focus on the wine underneath those bubbles, and the wild labors of love that silently took place in order to bring this project to fruition.
VITICULTURE & VINIFICATION
As aforementioned, Lamblot’s vineyards are very diverse in their flora, with many a fruit tree or other plantings intermingled into his densely-planted vine rows. You’d be correct in assuming that, as this sort of methodology aligns with biodynamic principles, that Alexandre has been practicing many facets of biodynamicism for years, including treating any maladies homeopathically. Only a very light tractor is used to till or trim the cover crops, and the vine canopies are often not hedged, but rolled - no Napa-style militaristic line-up of manicured vine rows here. With some of his vines’ age in excess of fifty years of age, you can imagine that all of these factors lead to dramatically small yields.
As I alluded to earlier, there is a good portion of sands and silts in line with many a Chartogne-Taillet vineyard in the Massif de Saint Thierry. For red grapes you could think about this as providing a beautifully ethereal aromatic profile, with very fine tannin structure - not something we often think about in Champagnes, but it’s worth a mention with this project. In other vineyards you’ll find some Ypresien clay and sandstone, which can lend a bit more depth and richness.
Even including the Intuition, Mouvance and Synergie, each plot is vinified separately (the former three later blended to create the final wines), and within each plot the various varietals are picked and vinified apart from each other. Pressing is another facet of Alexandre’s focus; each unique portion of grapes is pressed very gently, a process that can take four to six hours to complete. Doing this in a two-ton Coquard press (that’s tiny) adds to the aforementioned crazed dedication to this work.
After 11 months in barrel, Alex’s choices for sparkling wines will be bottled for their secondary fermentations. At no point in the primary fermentation were the wines filtered, fined, or even cold-stabilized, meaning each wine is dense and very much alive. For the secondary fermentation, the liqueur de tirage has a lower amount of sugar (22, rather than a more typical 24) grams, which is part of what leads to that tiny mousse referenced earlier, coupled with the cool cellars slowing the process. All of the bottles are hand-riddled, as are the disgorgements, and rarely will any dosage be added, given the perfect ripeness of the original wines.
Outside of the single-vintage wines, there is a Perpetual Reserve begun in 2017, as well as the Ratafia - dubbed Rata du Rene, after Alex’s father who presides over this bottling. The Ratafia is created using the final press juices (“rebêches”) of Pinot Noir, and aged in old red Burgundy barrels.
Alex’s distributed letter has a simple heading, which translates to the following: “Terroir, Biodiversity, Living Soils, Natural Vinification, Manual Work, Free Disgorging, Respect for Lunar Cycles”. A broad range of missions, but together a very refined ethos that make us tremendously proud to represent such a strong character.
