La Vigne D'Antan

100% Chardonnay, ungrafted. Zero dosage. Only 1,300 bottles produced.

"Antan" means "from another time", and this cuvée earns its name. La Vigne d'Antan comes from one of the most extraordinary vineyard stories in all of Champagne: a plot of ungrafted Chardonnay vines in the lieu-dit "Les Sables" in Oeuilly, Vallée de la Marne, where silica-sand soils from the Lutetian era naturally repel phylloxera. While the rest of the world's vineyards were forced to graft their vines onto American rootstocks after the phylloxera epidemic of the 19th century, these vines grow on their own roots, as they always have. The current vineyard was propagated by layering from three original plants by Denise and Geo Tarlant in 1962, at 135 metres altitude on a northeast to northwest-facing slope sculpted by the Marne river.

Viticulture is fully regenerative: natural ground cover, light tillage, phytotherapy, Chablis Poussard gentle pruning and natural green fertilisation.

The 2006 vintage brought beautiful vine flowering, a sunny spring and a cool yet very warm September. Grapes were harvested on 28 September 2006, gently pressed by gravity and fermented spontaneously in Burgundy oak barrels. The wine rested 6 months on harvest lees without malolactic fermentation, was bottled on 2 May 2007, and spent 17 years ageing on lees in bottle before disgorgement on 3 June 2024. Zero dosage, no filtration, no fining.

A Champagne unlike any other. The nose opens with delicate florals, ripe orchard fruit and toasted brioche, before giving way to deeper notes of cooked apple, a whisper of wild strawberry and a cool mineral thread that speaks directly of the sandy soils beneath these ancient roots. On the palate, the wine is simultaneously precise and generous, with layers of pie crust, savory depth and an iron-tinged minerality that adds remarkable tension. The mousse is fine and perfectly integrated, carrying a long, focused saline finish of extraordinary clarity. Seventeen years of patience have only sharpened its edge.

Outstanding with fine seafood: oysters, langoustines, scallops and turbot. A natural companion to white truffle dishes, delicate aged cheeses or simply savoured on its own as a contemplative experience.