Our family produces wine in this region since the XVIth century. Sixty years ago, a brand-new generation of winegrowers uncovered a terroir upon the gentle slopes of Montgueux, buried under fallow land.
Amongst the few brave dreamers, Jean Velut and his spouse, Huguette, initiated and developed the notoriety of Montgueux. Their son, Denis, developed the vineyard and started the Champagne production in 1976.
Slowly but surely, the word of our cuvée’s reputation spread. Today, it is the responsibility of Benoit, his son, to reveal this unique terroir.
Imagine a perched island, towering over the vast plains of Champagne 270m below. Embracing in a glance the city of Troyes to the east, the valley of the Seine in the north and the natural region of the Pays d’Othe to the west, Montgueux alights as the prow of a boat, first hill of a chalky coast extending to the south.
In this panorama, merely 214 ha of vineyard crowns our terroir, the most isolated of Champagne.
Here, Chardonnay predominates all, covering over 90 % of the village and making Montgueux the most southern Chardonnay terroir of Champagne.
Diving your hands into the earth of Montgueux is an encounter with 90 million years old chalky soils. Genuine foundation of our terroir, this Turonian chalk reveals the tropical past of the region. In that era, millions of coccolith algae, dressed in their calcareous skeleton, have slowly settled.
Including the hillslopes of Vitryat, 100km further in the northwest, this chalk embodies the unique appearance of the well-named “Côte de Champagne”.
South, our neighbours from the Côte des Bar, lay on the ancient Kimmeridgian limestone. North, our alter ego from Côte de Sézanne and Côte des Blancs, lay on the “Île de France” chalky hill.
Montgueux’s terroir is one of a kind. Its unique location provides a distinctive micro-climate, ensuring a distinguishable style to our grapes, wines and champagnes.
Ripening in the most southern Chardonnay village, our grapes bear a gourmand signature: ripe, generous and elegant at the same time, thanks to the chalky subsoils. The exotic fruits cohabit with freshness and salinity, the citruses respond to the peaches and acacia honey.
