Champagne Bourdaire-Gallois

Village:
Pouillon (Massif Saint-Thierry)
Appellation:
8ha
Champagne
Grower:
David Bourdaire
Website:
https://bourdaire-gallois.fr/
Downloadable PDF

David Bourdaire farms 8 hectares situated in and around the village of Pouillon. Pouillon is one of a dozen, or so villages in the Massif Saint-Thierry, a group of undulating hills and forests that slope off toward the vast plain, northwest of the city of Reims. This Massif is the northern most part of the Champagne appellation and is home to some 900 hectares of vineyards which are spread throughout the dozen villages. Due to the challenging climate, it is the late budding Pinot Meunier which is the favored grape type. The soils have a large portion of sandy clays which offer a distinguishing expression to the area’s champagnes.

David’s family began estate bottling their champagnes in 2001 when they left the coop that David’s grandfather founded in 1951. The vineyard is comprised of 85% Pinot Meunier, 10% Chardonnay and 5% Pinot Noir. The vines have an average age of 43 years with a few rows of Chardonnay planted at 11,000 plants per hectare that date back to 1923. David farms organically and is in conversion to obtaining certification. The vineyard is planted on low yielding root stocks and David cultivates natural grasses between the vine rows to further limit yields. He vinifies each parcel separately according to the specific rootstock “porte-greffe”. After years of adjusting the dosage level with each disgorgement, David has settled on finishing all of his Champagnes with a dosage of 0g/l.

Read David’s comments in the Champagne Vintage Reports

"Tradition" Extra-Brut NV

The Extra-Brut NV is 100% Pinot Meunier harvested from six different parcels. After a slow and gentle pressing in a traditional Coquard vertical press, the juice is fermented in stainless steel tanks. It undergoes a malo-lactic fermentation and then rests “sur lattes” for a minimum of 18 months. The Champagne is finished with a dosage of 0g/l.

"Reserve" Extra-Brut NV

The Reserve is a blend of 40% Pinot Meunier, 40% Pinot Noir and 20% Chardonnay harvested from five different parcels. After a slow and gentle pressing in a traditional Coquard vertical press, the juice is fermented in stainless steel tanks. It undergoes a malo-lactic fermentation and then rests “sur lattes” for four years. The Champagne is finished with a dosage of 0g/l.

"Blanc de Blanc" NV

The Blanc de Blanc is fermented 50% in cuve and 50% in barrel. The Champagne spends 4 years “sur lattes” before disgorgement and is finished with a dosage of 0g/l. This cuvee comes from two parcels with light sandy/silica soils including the parcel planted in 1923. This terroir gives the Blanc de Blanc a Chablis-like minerality. Production is very limited.

"Tradition" Rosé Extra-Brut

The Extra-Brut Rosé NV is 100% Pinot Meunier harvested from six different parcels. It is made by combining 21% red wine with 79% white wine from Pinot Meunier (blanc de noir). The juice is fermented in stainless steel tanks and an “assemblage is made that includes 20%reserve wine from the previous vintage. The wine goes through a malo-lactic fermentation and then rests “sur lattes” for a minimum of 3 years. The Champagne is finished with a dosage of 0g/l.

News

"L’objectif est de déterminer le profil sensoriel, olfactif et tactile des sous-sols, et donc celui des futurs vins, qu’ils soient assemblés ou non."
"The objective is to determine the sensory profile, olfactive and tactile, of the sub-soils, and thus that of the resulting wines, whether belended or not."
The winemaker and oenologue took samples of soils from 4 parcels of differentated soil types on David's property and from 3 different depths. They created "infusions" by combining the soil samples with water, placed in tasting glasses for their aromas to be studied as would be wine at its different stages of evolving.......

Region: Champagne

Champagne, at first glance, seems easy to understand. It is after all the most popularized and recognized wine in the world. It has been endorsed by Napoleon, Churchill and Warhol (it’s the “war” theme). However, once the fizz of gaiety evaporates and the veil of simplicity is pulled back, Champagne reveals a region with a fascinating history that has for centuries fastidiously cultivated a complex wine appellation. It is an appellation governed by complicated regulations that touch all aspects of production, a classification system of villages that sets grape prices and a myriad of styles including: wines of a single vintage, of blended vintages, of a single grape variety, of blended varieties; all of which can have different levels of dosage ranging from Extra Brut to Doux. Dare I mention content measurement? How did a 15 Liter bottle of Champagne come to be associated with Nebuchadnezzar?

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The Romans gave this region its name. I suspect that these explorers had already dipped into the “local water” before naming it Campagna in memory of the area around Mount Vesuvius. Perhaps in contrast to the vast plains that flank the region to the west the geological undulations of Champagne appeared to be a similar wonder of nature. The region’s boundaries are basically unchanged since the 15th century and the “champagne viticole” (vineyard area) today spans five “départments” , the vast majority of them located in the Marne and the Aube. The vineyards cover approximately 30,400 hectares, although this area has recently been expanded. Most of the vineyards fall into the following broad areas: Vallée de la Marne, Côte de Sézanne, Côte de Blancs, Montagne de Reims and the Côte de Bar. A complete and more precise categorization divides the vineyards into twenty regions and is explained in the wonderful book Grand Atlas des Vignobles de France.

Champagne became an important center in France after Hugh Capet was crowned in Reims Cathedral in 987. Kings were crowned in the Cathedral for the following eight centuries and during this period considerable grants were given to the local monasteries which in turn became centers of winemaking until the revolution in 1798.

Until the 17th century the wines of Champagne were labeled according to small geographic regions such as vins de la Montagne or vins de la Riviere or more specifically by village or place names such as Bouzy, Verzenay, Ay and the Abbey of Hautvilliers. These wines were predominantly made from red grapes, their color compared to an onion skin or the eye of a partridge and they were gently effervescent or not. As fashion changed, so did the style of the wines to the extent that the producers could control it. The style of Champagne that we know today began in the 19th century and continues to evolve. The biggest change in the last twenty years is the increase of small scale recoltant-manipulant, “RM” producers. These estate bottled champagnes offer a remarkable diversity of expression resulting from the different philosophies of the independent producers and the more specific terroirs with which they work. These more personal expressions of champagne stand in stark contrast to the large negociant manipulant, “NM” producers who blend wines from hundreds of villages and often produce Champagne with a calculated uniformity.