CHAMPAGNE TARLANT

Five+ years ago, I visited Grey Gardens in Toronto for a celebratory dinner. As always, I was craving something bubbly and noticed Tarlant on the list. I’d heard rumours that their wines were sensational, so I went for it. I was immediately impressed by its complexity and depth, properly mature flavours complimented by ample freshness. It was just what I needed, another wine obsession.

I spent the next few years seeking out their wines at any opportunity, notably from Discovery Wines in New York. When the lockdowns struck in 2020, nostalgia kicked in. From isolation, fueled by solo drinking and hubris, I decided to reach out and see if my sappiness could sway them into sharing their limited production with a couple of foolhardy Canadians. Needless to say, our pleas were compelling.

In the spring of 2022, we set off for France to visit Champagne for the first time. Feeling a little fuzzy from the previous evening’s escapades at Reims’ legendary The Glue Pot, we drove southwest to the Marne Valley. We arrived in the town of Œuilly just in time for a pain-au-chocolate, and then we were off to the vineyards with Daniel, Melanie Tarlant’s partner. Daniel, an ex-archeologist, is incredibly bright and inviting, his wool sweater and scruff keeping him warm against the March breezes. Although the sun was warming, hinting at spring to come, the damp cold kept our bones chilled.

The bulk of their most exalted vineyards are located in a small amphitheatre just east of the town. The 15º slope faces north, an orientation I didn’t think was plausible in the cooler mesoclimate of the Marne Valley. They believe reflected light from the river helps them obtain ripeness, and with climate change constantly increasing temperatures, this side of the valley is getting a lot more attention.

They allow a specially selected combination of vegetable-dominant cover crops to grow between the vines, helping balance the soil. They’ll let them get to 1.5m high, encouraging the vines to grow straight and tall early in the season. They prefer these gentle forms of farming, mimicking nature to the best of their ability.

Daniel also showed us their new winter pruning ideology. Instead of cutting the vine right next to the bud, they leave a little more space. The cut is susceptible to frost and drying out, so this little buffer protects the fragile new growth. Hopefully, this will help keep the plant healthy, leading to more consistent yields and better fruit.

Within a few hundred meters, the soils vary drastically. The northeast-facing slope directly adjacent to Œuilly features a lieu-dit called La Pierre de Bellevue and is the inspiration for La Vigne d’Or, a Pinot Meunier Blanc de Noirs. The Sparnacian Lignite, a light brown sedimentary coal-like rock made from ancient peat, was formed roughly fifty million years ago in the Ypresian stage.

Above that, you’ll find Four A Chaux, the plot that yields Bam!, their blend of Pinot Blanc, Arbane, and Petit Meslier. These varieties, once widely planted, now represent only a tiny fraction of Champagne’s acreage. Melanie & Benoit believe they might have some resistance to climate change, retaining acidity even during warmer vintages. Yields are less predictable, so they’re constantly honing in their selection massale. The limestone and sand here were formed during the Thanetian stage 56+ million years ago. The rocky greyish limestone is an entirely different texture than the lignite, only a five-minute walk away.

Adjacent to this site, you’ll find the lieu-dit of Les Sables, named for incredibly sandy silica soils. Phylloxera can’t survive sand like this, so the Tarlants opted to plant ungrafted Chardonnay via the bent cane method – you burry a cane from an adjacent plant and when it roots well enough to sustain itself, the original cane is cut, resulting in two independent but genetically identical plants. Own-rooted vines represent less than 0.1% of the vines in Champagne, making La Vigne d’Antan one of the rarest wines in our portfolio. The soils were formed during the Lutetian Era ~45 million years ago. The era derives its name from the roman word for Paris (Lutetia), whose buildings are primarily built from limestone of the same time period.

A few hundred metres east, you’ll find the lieu-dit of Les Crayons over a slight rise. Located near the river on a 12º east-facing slope, we once again have a massive shift in soil. You’ll find pure white chalk from the Campanian Era, ~80 million years ago. Their renowned Cuvée Louis comes exclusively from this site.

Louis Tarlant himself is an iconic figure. The Tarlant family has been farming in this area since 1687 and moved to their current town of Œuilly in 1780. For centuries they farmed mixed crops, sold grapes, and made a little wine for personal consumption or the local pub.

At the dawn of the 20th century, it was common practice for large Champagne Houses to purchase grapes or premade wine from neighbouring regions or even other countries, blending it in with their own stocks to manipulate the flavour, but more importantly, increase their margins. This helped reinforce the notion that Champagne was a brand more than a place, something Louis, the mayor of Œuilly, took personally. Through dissenting, protest, and ultimately legislation, Louis helped establish Champagne as an Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée, codifying farming and winemaking practices. The results of these efforts are vast, economically protecting farmers and re-establishing terroir as the lynchpin of Champagne.

Louis was so disillusioned with the large Champagne houses that necessitated all this advocacy that he decided to become one of the first Recoltant Manipulant. Decades before his peers started breaking off, he established himself as an independent producer who not only grew his own grapes but made his wine as well – a surprisingly rare combination at the time, and even today, only makes up 5% of the Champagne Market.

The innovation didn’t stop there. Jean-Mary, Benoit & Melanie’s father, advocated for cover crops at a time when industrial farming was all the rage. His most significant contribution was a move away from cumbersome dosage levels. Historically, adding sugar after disgorging was thought of as not only desirable but necessary to make Champagne drinkable. Sweetness was often used to disguise sour flavours from underripe grapes or to hide jarring acidity. Realizing this crutch could be overcome by thoughtful farming and long élevage times, they began releasing zero dosage wines as early as the 70s, decades before the trend took off. Benoit summed this up eloquently by saying, ‘time is our dosage,’ implying long ageing on lees softens the acidity. Even reference books released within the last decade seem hesitant to advocate for this minimalist approach, but based on personal tasting experience, they seem to have it figured out.

In the cellar, the hand-harvested grapes are pressed into barrel for indigenous primary fermentation. Each parcel, over sixty in total, is kept separate. In the spring, they start an incredibly intense blending process. After selecting which wines will become single vineyard releases or their Zéro series, the remaining wine ends up in their reserve stocks to be used later after extended ageing.

There’s a small tunnel leading from their winery to the church in the village below. Rumour has it the locals would hide here during the war that ravaged the region. Barrels of their single vineyard wines now line this narrow space, wind rushing through at all times. It has a unique energy, cold and tense. Perhaps it imparts some of its nervousness to the wines.

For secondary fermentation, Benoit has an ingenious methodology to highlight terroir. Over harvest, he collects juice, fermenting wine, and finished wine from each parcel and sends it to a lab. The lab then isolates yeast strains from those plots and keeps them alive and healthy until it’s time to add the liqueur de tirage. The multi-vineyard blends will be inoculated with a blend of yeasts from those sites with the single lieu-dits fermented with single cultures. This costly and time-consuming process shows their absolute commitment to expressing terroir at all costs.

More so than any producer we’ve ever worked with, they refuse to release a wine before it’s ready. Even their entry-level wines spend 6+ years on lees before being disgorged. There’s nothing more satisfying than cracking a fully mature bottle of Champagne.

While tasting through their current releases, we chatted about all their side projects. They’re experimenting with a variety of amphoras for both still and sparkling wines, settling most recently on small spherical ones for Argilité. They’ve quickly gained fame for their single vineyard Coteaux Champenois made from Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and Pinot Meunier, proving this terroir is more than capable of producing world-class still wines. They’ve also tried their hand at orange wine, macerating Chardonnay on skins for extended periods in amphora. The unreleased wine is hauntingly luminous and textural; we pray they’ll sell us a couple eventually. They’ve also started planting Pinot Gris. It is beyond today’s appellation system; however, their research indicates it may have been the first Pinot grown in the region – the pinky-copper still wines of legend, sometimes called Oeil de Perdrix, may have been skin-fermented, Pinot Gris. We even got to try their secret collaboration with Cantillon, which, despite being sworn to secrecy, has ended up in this write-up.

After our meeting, we joined Melanie and Daniel for lunch at Sacré Bistrot in Epernay, a corner bar with sensational food and a wine list packed with cult growers. We chatted for hours about life as much as wine. It’s impossible to describe how much I admire their dedication and poise. Melanie has become a mentor to many women in Champagne for her business prowess and authenticity. Benoit is a gracious intellectual, as cerebral as she is soulful and relentlessly hardworking. I can’t help but feel a sense of pride when I share their wines; how lucky we are.