Champagne Day 4 – Part 2 – Remy

George Remy Visit Report 2026_MR.pdf

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Tasting Notes downloadable above compiled by Martin Reyes MW.

While winding through the countryside we got all the dirt from Thomas about big Champagne houses and their sly practices. The Champagne industry is heavily regulated and seems skewed towards the big houses. Unprincipled producers can buy grapes, juice or even finished bottles to add their signature dosage to make the wines consistent and sell them. There’s also a committee that regulates how much wine can be produced per amount harvested. They are legally allowed to chaptalize to adjust the alcohol levels within a 0.5% limit which can mean they can increase their yield pretty significantly if they’re clever. The wine itself is not bad necessarily, but if you put it next to grower Champagne you’ll understand what I mean. Much as I feel they

should have a normal person in the Olympics just so we understand what feats those athletes are really accomplishing, perhaps we should bring a yellow label around with us just to feel good about ourselves.

Anyway, we don’t have to worry about these unscrupulous practices, but all (or most) of our growers sell grapes or juice to the big houses like Deutz, Bollinger and Krug. I’m sure there’s even more to it, but that’s what you’re getting when you buy that stuff!

The story of Remy is that Thomas met Georges because Georges had been making small quantities of Coteaux Champenois, the still wine of Champagne, and sold the rest of his harvest to the big houses. Thomas tried Georges’ red and said if he started making Champagne to give him a call. Georges resisted for many years but eventually decided to keep about 20% of his yield and make tiny quantities of wine.

We were greeted warmly by Carole, his wife, who showed us around the small winery and into the kitchen to taste. Georges came through with a consulting oenologist who said if the wines are good they were made by Georges, if they were bad they were made by him. They were good. I don’t know what is going on, but every rosé we have tasted so far has stood out. Champagne, rosé is not normally my go-to, but at every tasting I’ve paused when we poured them and Remy was no different. Remy’s wines are all fascinating. He makes only 15,000-20,000 bottles per year and he’s one producer to whom other growers give the impressed nod of approval when they learn we are representing him.

Georges is quiet and busy, but he took some time to show us the vineyards and there he really seemed at ease. They do their own compost, inter-plant natural crops like radish and mustard and use their own yeast that George cultivates from grapes collected from the vineyard. I was just getting the right angle for our selfie when Thomas said

Crimson Clover

we really had to go so he could catch his train back to Paris. Unfortunately we got stuck in the vineyard behind one of the worker’s

trucks for a couple of minutes. I didn’t realize how close we were cutting it to his train departure time, but as Google adjusted our estimate we realized he would arrive at the station exactly 2 minutes before the train was scheduled to leave. If you think we’re just leisurely sipping Champagne in a salon, I assure you that’s not the case. Ok, well sometimes it is, but sometimes we’re pushing the limits of our rental car and ejecting an esteemed colleague whom it would really be to our benefit to impress out the door and making him run down the street to catch his train. We also had 3 gift bottles of wine for Thomas that we did not have time to extract from the trunk. We now have even more wine in the car.