To continue our journey is to discover champagne producers, here is a little discovery that I made recently, on the exploitation of the vines in Champagne of the Varnier-Fannière family.
This champagne house was founded in 1860, at a time when the winegrowers sold each year, at the time of the harvest, all of their grape harvests to the trading houses. They sold all of their Champagne wine in this way to the world and had virtually no vines. The current merchants still operate in this way and always source in the same way, by fetching the grapes from the champagne producer, the small owners, to make their Champagne wine.
Produced, harvested and produced exclusively, in a part of the Champagne Region, which is delimited by its particular soil and subsoil, the Champagne appellation today covers around 30,000 hectares in 320 villages.
The attribute of each village (soil, subsoil, microclimate, sunshine, etc.) has long allowed the development of a scale of wines. That is to say about 80 and 100% attributed to each of the villages, depending on the quality of its grapes. The villages which are classified, between 90 and 99% are named Premier Cru, and the 17 villages which are classified 100% are qualified as Grand Cru. The Grands Crus therefore have the best quality in the Champagne region.
The fruity brut grand cru champagne Varnier-Fannière
In trying to find new bottles, I set my last sights on a house that we don't necessarily talk about every day. So far I have simply tasted their brut champagne, which will validate the old adage that the notoriety of a great Champagne House can also be judged by the quality of its Brut champagne wine. Their Brut Grand Cru is a blend of different harvest years, with an average aging in bottle of around three years.
After the preparation of the tasting, the Brut Grand Cru Varnier-Fannière champagne wine reveals a fresh, pale yellow color whose reflections are reminiscent of jade. Its nose deploys aromas of citrus fruits and notes of ripe fruit, even green apple. Once in the mouth, its attack is lively, and its balance shows that the Chardonnay is omnipresent, with a final mineral touch. An ideal brut Champagne for an aperitif, it will delight lovers of champagne where the quality / price ratio is a major asset.