Champagne Day 3 – Diebolt Vallois, Forest Marie, Renaudin
- Elaine Cadman
- May 25
- 6 min read
Isabelle is a tour de force and the winery was buzzing when we arrived -they were bottling the Prestige. We navigated around the crew and the cacophony of clanking bottles and went into the barrel room where Isabelle launched into an in-depth history of the winery. Diebolt was “Daddy’s” name and Vallois was “Mommy’s”.
Isabelle was equally animated about the consistencies of their wines as she was about the uniqueness of the vintages. The wines follow a certain
recipe and her explanation was you choose to cook with butter or olive oil and while your cooking might vary a bit based on ingredients you would not change the base you’re working with. She got really excited when we tasted the Millisémé wine, in this case the 2019, which we have on the way. It is more flowery than the 2018 which was a sunny year. She said if you really want to have a party then open a bottle of 2014, I think we have 2 bottles in the library – just saying…
The Fleur de Passion is their most special wine and the only one that does not undergo malolactic. It comes from Vieilles Vignes which has no official definition, but their vines are 50-80 years old and she told us sometimes they have but two grapes per vine.
We, or at least I, continue to be surprised and relieved by the casualness of many of these tastings. Standing in the tank room with a barrel to balance your glass makes me appreciate the producers we have so much. Not that there is anything wrong with a more curated tasting, but the caliber of wines we’ve had in garages is pretty insane. I’ve tasted the Fleur de Passion twice in 13 years with WineWise and to have it poured by the winemaker just blows my mind. All of her wines enjoy the Cramant Grand Cru distinction, and the resume of restaurants that pour her wines is star-studded.
Every so often on these trips we fall in love with the family as much as we do with the wines, this was that experience. Greeted by the whole family – Thierry, his wife Gracianne and their children, Louis and Marthe. Sometimes you go to a winery run by a family and one person does everything or they have very segmented roles. That is not the case here. The whole family was fluttering about pulling tank samples, explaining equipment,
showing us photos from harvests. Louis is especially busy and his dark tan and hiking boots with thick socks made it pretty obvious that he was in the vineyards a lot.
We basically wrecked the place. We drank through tank samples, we tromped through the vineyard, we drank barrel samples, we disgorged wine and sprayed Champagne everywhere, we played fetch with the dog using illicit items, we stayed past the baby’s nap time and gave him Champagne corks to play with, we drank every wine in the lineup plus Louis’ wines. By the time we left they probably had to hose the place down and buy another vineyard just to make up for our visit.
We were really excited to taste the vin clair – or the wine that turns into Champagne; which we don’t often get to do.
Champagne is quite different from other winemaking, they actually select for subtlety because the wine concentrates as it develops so if they begin with an overly aromatic base the wine becomes overpowering. The selecting of the blend, assemblage, is a big day as you can imagine and this is where the siblings diverge. The bigger story is that Louis and Marthe are taking over as the next generation and are every bit
as talented and passionate as their parents, maybe even more so. There’s a curiosity and appreciation for each other’s approaches to winemaking and it’s really beautiful. Marthe is taking over the Forest Marie label and Louis has his own. We could not resist buying his 2017 Le Mont des Chretiens Magnums, of which we still have a few left. Their wines are all made from the same grapes, but they do the assemblage and the vinification differently and the results are just like the siblings who made them, similar enough, but unique. Marthe says Louis’ wines are more powerful, whereas she tends towards subtlety.
I may get pushback on this, but I think their wines have gotten better in the past few years. We did a big Champagne tasting last fall and I remember opening the Forest-Marie Rosé and thinking it was particularly excellent. It could very well be the Marthe’s influence, but they also got a Coquard press about 5 years ago and perhaps that is part of it also.
Next they let us practice disgorging and we sprayed wine everywhere. These people are so darn nice.
Last stop before the tasting was upstairs in the barrel room. This is where the grapes go in the press as well. Louis loves harvest and he was telling me in Champagne you have to use picking buckets with holes in them because you’re not allowed to keep any juice that has collected at the bottom of the container. Louis says he puts about 42kg per bucket instead of 56 so there is less crushing. He said during harvest time the roads are literally crunchy because of all the trucks driving around with juice spilling on the roads that dries into sugar.
I won’t bore you with my tasting notes, but we got to taste through all of the Forest Marie lineup as well as Louis’ wines. We have some magnums of Louis’ 2017 which are just spectacular, but his rosé was also standout in my opinion. I mean, they’re all quite good! I honestly did not want to leave this place, so special.
This is where it gets weird. What I am going to describe might not sound particularly favorable, but this place is actually a gold mine. Renaudin is in hiatus. They are not actively making wine aside from a few side projects. The situation is this: Dominique is a clever man, burnt out on running a winery and did not have a succession plan in place so instead of doing things half way he’s decided to hit the pause button while his 21 year old daughter goes to Oenology and wine business school real quick. The actual estate is other worldly. There are army bases smaller and less fortified than this place. Dominique showed us
around and we went from one gigantic wine storage building to the next as he flipped breakers. In one room, he said, housed 1 million bottles at one time. I don’t know exactly how much wine he has left, but it looks pretty empty just because the place is so huge.
Dominique is anticipating his daughter’s ability to resurrect the estate, so he wants to keep some stock for her as a starting point. Since there is no winemaking staff at the moment, when we place an order he has to find someone to
label the bottles and box them up. He doesn’t even really want to sell the wine! We asked how many distributors he has and he said a few occasional orders, but I think we are the main one. The wine is amazing and it just gets better with
time. He took us into the house on the property and brought out three bottles, two of which we are familiar with, the NV and the 2013, as well as the 2020. Man they are good. Our last shipment of 2013 got snapped up the minute it landed by one account. I’m kind of regretting that now that I know how finite the supply is. You may question our business acumen at the moment and I don’t blame you, but what we lack in that department I assure you we make up for it in the product. All Chardonnay, the wine is just exquisite. It didn’t hurt that Dominique treated us to some canapes and tiny French pastries. It was 8PM by the time we were finished. We’re also staying at Renaudin’s Gîte, a set of renovated housing just across from the winery, which is still an active part of the business. Very kind of them and we’re happy to unpack our bags here for 3 nights.
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