La maison

Wine-making

Always on the cutting edge

Just as his elders, Fabien has invested a lot in the production tool, to keep it update. The state -of -the -art equipment and the technology are associated with a return to traditional techniques and knowledge. He is always challenging the achievements in order to keep on moving ahead. He spares no effort for his vineyards and his wines.

The ingenuity of the Grumier family is noticeable from the winepress. Installed on three levels, it is meant to make the juice drain away by gravity directly in the vats for the rackling. The pressing process is made very softly, each plot is pressed separately.

His leading edge stainless steel winery, parallelepipedic and thermo controlled allows to do the wine making with extreme precision and in very small volume, variety by variety, plot by plot. Even the reserve wines are kept into controlled and mastered temperature vats in order to guarantee freshness and fineness through the years.

A hundred of barrels as well as large barrels complete the exponential possibilities of the wines. They intervene from the alcohol fermentation for about 50% of the total quantity of the juice. These will still remain in the barrels for an ageing ranging from 6 to 18 months, according to their purpose which also depends on their quality. The wood is to bring some richness to the Champagnes but Fabien preserves it to keep the freshness of his wines rather than to add wooden aromas.

The combination of vats and barrels makes it possible to have a base of more than a hundred of clear wines every year. This provides an infinite potential of creation and a total freedom in the elaboration of the blends.

As a result stainless steel and wood are side by side the cellar.

With a passion close to the heart, Fabien elaborates wines that are rich and complex, focused on the freshness and a great aromatic expressivity. He claims a vision with very little interference into the wine process in order to let it express by itself and thus fully reveal the character of his soil.

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Thus everything is implemented in the vineyard as well as in the cellar, in order to extract the most natural expression of the grape variety and of the terroir by proposing low dosage champagnes.

We wish to interfere the least and let the wines take their time. This explains the reason why our wines can wait more than six months on their lees in vats, in large barrels or in small oak barrels after the first alcohol fermentation ……… So with this time break they can release all their aromatic richness and complexity. Moreover, still in the line of non- interference we don’t do any wine fining and a majority of the wines are not filtered.

We wish to create a natural link which reveals a beautiful harmony between the material of the fruit and the salts from the soil. From our reserve wines to the wines of the year, in barrels or vats, with malolactic or not, Pinot Noir or Chardonnay, plots from the low side or plots from the hillsides facing the south or the east, old vineyards; such is the overall set of our materials for the composition of our 10 unique vintages….. And to give way to the full expression of our champagnes, to the disgorging, we made the choice of light or zero dosage.

High quality pressing.
A visual and gustatory range of juices.

Little racking. A slow winemaking suitable to the potential of each terroir. A maturing in vats, in oak barrels of different volumes and origins, in egg-shaped vat, in concrete or in sandstone amphora vats. There is no useless intervention.

No wine fining, no wine filtering. Restraining the wine transfer and focusing on the gravity. Developing the wine at its pace and aiming at its balance.

Our winemaking strategy is the extension of the upstream work carried out in the vineyard.
We want to keep all the richness of the grapes: their fruitiness, their balance, their personality, we barely interfere in order to let the grapes express their whole potential.

The years go by and don’t look alike; we adjust to the conditions of the vintage; the harvest schedule is naturally defined in accordance with the maturity of the grapes in each village and in each plot.

Our determination to elaborate champagnes of strong personality leads us to vinify separately (when their size makes it possible it) each village, each grape variety and each plot.

From our view the winemaking of a variety of terroirs is necessary to guarantee the regularity, the fineness and the precision of our blends.

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Passion and Patience

Since 2015 Fabien set up a Solera system. This consists in ageing old wines in contact with young wines. The wines of a year are kept in some barrels for the ageing. Every year part of it is bottled but a proportion of these wines are kept in barrels and the wine taken away must then be replaced with new wines. Over the years, with a strategy of proportions, the wine contained in these barrels is increasingly matured but keeps all its freshness thanks to the regular contribution of the wines of the year.

Associated to another system of perpetual reserve, this Solera allows Fabien to be able to make up some Champagnes of strong personality by a principle according to which the” old wine educates the young one”.