New Year’s Eve is right around the corner. The time of year when the big Champagne houses really make their money. According to industry reports Champagne makes up 2/3 of all wine sales in the US leading up to New Years Eve. The top selling brands being Veuve Clicqout and Moët & Chandon. Those two houses are dominant. Between the two of them they produce more than 50 million bottles every year. To achieve that kind of scale the big houses go around the region buying grapes, grape must, and wine. Once they acquire the raw materials they ply industrial tactics and additives to achieve uniformity across their labels. Good on those houses for having scaled their production, distribution and brand. However, there is another way to make great champagne. 

Let’s look now at Champagne Chavost. A Champagne making co-op based in Chavot-Courcourt. At the helm of Champagne Chavost is the young winemaker, Fabian Daviaux. He took over the winemaking operation in 2019 at the age of thirty and in that short time has moved the co-op in a radical new direction in a region not known for pushing the boundaries. Since his ascendence he has urged growers in the co-op to sell less of their harvest to the big wine houses, he has ushered the co-op into growing organically and released a line of Champagne made with little intervention. 

We should pause here to go deeper on how Champagne is typically made. It starts like most other wines, grapes are pressed, grape must (what most would call grape juice) is fermented, and then bottled. However before bottling, conventional Champagne makers (like the big ones mentioned above) typically add additional sugar and commercial yeast to the wine. This allows the wine to undergo a second fermentation in the bottle and creates all those bubbles. After the second fermentation is complete Champagne is allowed to sit on the lees, or age while in contact with all the dead yeast, then through a number of processes (riddling*, depointage*, and disgorging*) the yeast is removed, another dose of sugar is added (called dosage*) and finally the cork is inserted and wired down. It should also be noted that sulfites are typically added at different points in the process to manage the fermentation. 

Making great Champagne is hard-- even when using conventional methods. It is even more impressive that Fabien makes his Champagnes without added sulfites, fining or filtering, adjusting acidity, and without added sugar.  

And the result of doing without? Fabian’s Champagne is excellent. The Brut D’Assemblage has bright acidity like Granny Smith apples, and a delightful creaminess. It stands up against any of the big houses and above most. By the way, there’s only 17k bottles of this stuff floating around (remember the 50M number) and so as you search for a bottle to pop to celebrate an end to 2023 and ring in 2024 look no further than Champagne Chavost. 

Winemaker: Fabian Daviaux

Country/Region: Chavot-Courcourt, Champagne, France

Grape: 50% Chardonnay, 50% Pinot Meunier

Making of: No use of added sulfites, settling is done without enzymes, no tannin nor coal, no added sugar. Spontaneous fermentation (indigenous yeast) and spontaneous malolactic fermentation (indigenous bacteria). Once ready, wines are not finned (means clarified) before bottling, no acidification nor deacidification.

Notes: Granny Smith Apple like acidity, well balanced, creamy

* Riddling: The aim of riddling, or remuage, is to loosen the sediment so that it collects in the bottle neck. This age-old process involves rotating the bottle in small increments while gradually tilting it so that it is "neck-down" ("sur pointe"). In this way, the sediment will slide down into the bottle neck.

* Dépointage is the stacking of the bottles neck down after riddling

* Digorging The process in which excess yeast or “yeast lees” are removed from the bottle before the cork is inserted. Here is a little video of how it works, it’s quite fascinating)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YGuFDf_Ibs

* Dosage: A mixture of cane sugar dissolved in wine is added to the Champagne before bottling.