Champagne - Les Autres Maisons

As well as the Grandes Maisons mentioned in my previous post we also visited two other Champagne Houses. In May Hubby and I visited the London Wine Fair and through Connoisseur Estates discovered Champagne Autréau. I was so pleased to be able to arrange a visit to this Champagne House which is set in the beautiful village Champillon.

Champillon lies on higher ground midst the Pinot Noir vines just north of Epernay with Champagne Autréau standing proud in the centre of the village in a very chic clean inviting building; the three champagne grape variety vines growing at the door.

Being August the village was very quiet and standing looking over the vines to Epernay in the stillness was quite a moment. Bernard Autréau began producing champagne in 1953 with 3 hectares of vines; his family can be traced back to living in Champillon since 1670.

It is very much a family business with his son Eric Autréau producing champagne in 1980 after which their acreage increased to 15 hectares. Laurent Autréau has been working in the family business since 2009; three generations of Champagne producers.

It was Eric Autréau who greeted us and lead us through a tour of Autreau's cave and production area explaining how everything works and how their bottles of bubbles are produced. It was a great tour, in French, my translation skills standing up to the task, and so interesting to see champagne being made in a smaller more personal setting.

Our tasting was in a great room with beautiful glass topped tables made from wooden wheels. Champagne Autréau's branding is clean, chic and gives the impression of something special .... which their champagne certainly was.

Monsieur Autréau opened three bottles for us to taste, all superb, all with more flavour than some of the bigger brands we had previously tried.

Brut Premier Cru – Pinot Noir 40% Pinot Meunier 40% Chardonnay 20% - a Silver Medal wine with beautiful fine bubbles

Blanc de Blanc – 100% Chardonnay, this Grand Cru was my favourite with its citrus flavour and creamier finish.

Brut Reserve – Pinot Noir and Chardonnay in equal quantities from the Grand Cru villages of Ay and Chouilly, this was full of softer fruit with a nutty edge.

Champagne Autréau's champagne had cleaner finer bubbles with such great flavour. I think it was this tasting that emphasised to me how every champagne is different and you cannot say you like or dislike this type of wine until you have sampled a range of styles and producers.

Thank you Monsieur Autréau for your time and hospitality ..... I will reminisce with great affection when enjoying a glass of Champagne Autréau 'chez nous'.

One difference that was very obvious at Champgne Autréau was the price of each bottle. On our previous holiday six years ago we did not visit any smaller houses thinking their champagne would be out of our price range knowing that the larger houses prices are upwards of €25.

How wrong we were! Champagne Autréau prices start at around €14, a much lower price for a much nicer bottle of bubbles. This was a real surprise to me, a surprise confirmed at our second visit.

The Office de Tourisme in Epernay and Reims has free champagne tastings,. These are smaller local champagne producers, a different house each day, who are happy to share their wine and chat about their vines and Champagne.

We had some lovely champagne at both Offices, notably Dominique Boulard in Reims who was very generous in his degustations - we tried four or five of his champagne, all superb but unfortunately we did not have time to visit his property and at the Office de Tourisme tastings no sales were permitted, it was purely for promotion and to encourage visitors to the smaller houses.

This blue labelled Brut Reserve is made from 20% Pinot Noir, 70% Meunier and 10% Chardonnay with the Pinot Meunier certainly giving this Brut an extra note of dark fruitness. The toastiest flavour was in their 2005 Vintage Champagne, a beautiful glass of bubbles. Thank you Dominique Boulard I again discovered new and exciting wines and I do hope one day to be able to visit.

In the Office de Tourisme in Epernay we met Madame and Monsieur from Andreiux-Lefort, a very small champagne producer who is also in Champillon, round the corner from Champagne Autréau. They produce just over 2000 bottles of Brut and 800 bottles of rosé from their 3 hectacres of vines.

Arriving at their address you would never imagine this was a champagne producer, an ordinary corner plot house with beautiful garden overlooking the vines with Epernay in the distance. Monsieur greeted us like friends and invited us into his cellar under the house .... his wine cave!

What an amazing room, so cosy, so welcoming. At the far end the bar had a collection of champagne bottles increasing in size and a small version of the presses seen all over this area. It was a superb room with the table and chairs made in the shape of champagne wires with caplet collections as the seats and table top. One of the caplets was worth over €200.

Monsieur opened a bottle of rosé; it was wonderful, the nicest rosé champagne of our trip. It had plenty of fruitness without being overly sweet with an abundance of fine bubbles. Madame joined us along with three other tourists who had also dropped by as a result of their tasting in the Office de Tourisme. It was a very pleasant time enjoying rosé champagne chatting in a variety of languages: English, French, Spanish.

In the Office de Tourisme I was very impressed by Andreiux-Lefort's Brut, it was full of biscuitiness, lots of toast flavours with a nutty edge. From all the tastings we had this was my favourite champagne. I was so pleased to have visited Madame and Monsieur and to now have their great Brut to be enjoyed at a special moment chez nous as this champagne can only be purchased direct.

I also purchased a bottle of Ratafia which is liqueur made only in this region. It is very similar to Pineau de Charentes a favourite of my Dad's that we brought home for him every year. I'm looking forward to introducing this to our friends at one of our wine tastings for the Scout Leaders.

Thank you Madame at Monsieur for your hospitality, time and great champagne. Your Champagne stopper gift will be used on many other brands but will always remind me of your superb sous-sol!

Two other champagnes I really enjoyed were also new brands to me. The first was one we purchased at the Phare de Verzany and enjoyed at our hotel in Reims with our friends, it was around €17.

The other was a champagne on offer at €13,99 in a French supermarket that Hubby and I brought home to try. It had great bubbles, a deep rich colour, and a biscuit flavour .... wish we had brought more, especially at such a good price!

We had an amazing time in the ‘bubbly’ region of France, when here again I will be visiting many more small houses and hopefully discovering even more about this wine. It is amazing how three grapes grown in the same area can produce such varying wines depending on the skill and blending of the Champagne Vintner - it's a real skill that I look on with great admiration.

If looking for Champagne I would certainly recommend trying others, not just the well known labels. Looking behind the supermarkets own label will lead you to discover many new Champagne names.

I was very taken with the caplet collections, I didn't realise how popular this is, nor did I realise how vast the hobby is. There were Collectors Fairs and some of the Champagne Houses produce limited edition series which are highly sort after; some caplets are worth a fortune!

I too now have started a collection and bought a superb holder from Epernay – I wonder which caplet will be added next !