Champagne Nathalie Falmet

Champagne Nathalie Falmet is based in Rouvres-les-Vignes on the eastern edge of Champagne s Aube.  After a Paris XI degree in chemistry she qualified as an oenologue (wine scientist) in 1993 and runs her Bar-sur-Aube consulting laboratory she founded in 1994 before she took over the family estate. The estate is tiny (3.2ha, making some 30,000 bottles per annum), mostly from Rouvres-les-Vignes, with .4ha of it the other side of Bar-sur-Aube in Arsonval.  The prized vineyard of the estate is a single parcel of senior Pinot Noir and Meunier vines on sharply south-facing Le Val Cornet outside the village, which makes a cuv e of the same name. In all, 2.1ha are planted to Pinot Noir, .5ha is Chardonnay and .6ha Meunier. The viticulture is lutte raison e, as near to organic as possible, on clay and Kimmeridgian limestone soils.  Along with cultivation to encourage soil life, drainage and control weeds, pruning is quite severe to limit yield, especially on lieu-dit Le Val Cornet where it is less than 6,000kg/ha, half Champagne s norm.  Falmet uses stainless steel, older barrels and terracotta amphorae, as well as solera reserves begun in 2008. Her fans comment on the uncommon freshness and elegance of her wines, with distinctive flavours she associates with each parcel.  Her top wines are expressions of wood-fermented parcels from within Le Val Cornet, with the cadastral names ZH302, ZH303, ZH318. Recent new cuv es are a Blanc de Blancs  Terra  and one made from the perpetual reserve:  Solera  (50PN, 50CH).