Zoom Event--Mathilde Margaine of Champagne A. Margaine & Brad B, Saturday 5/23 @ 10AM PT / 1PM ET

We’re continuing our series this Saturday with Mathilde Margaine. Founded in the 1920s, and like many domaines, the responsibility and leadership has passed through several generations. Today, the domaine is led by Arnaud, along with his daughter, Mathilde.

The vines are located in Villers-Marmery, just 20 mins east of Vilmart along the main route in the Montagne, the D26. This is the beautiful, small 2-lane road that circles the Montagne de Reims National Park. So as you head east on D26, and just before you begin to turn south towards Ambonnay, we find A. Margaine in Villers-Marmery. Interestingly, as much as we may think of the Montagne as being dominated by pinot, the village of Villers-Marmery is the outlier, being a chardonnay producing village, anchored squarely by the wines of A. Margaine. The exposure in the village for the vines is southerly, which is likely one of the main reasons why Chardonnay does so well here.

So aside from a little Pinot Noir that comes from neighboring Verzy, we can think of A. Margaine as a Chardonnay dominant producer. The house makes several bottlings, some made with reserve wines, and they also have a Special Club cuvee.

For this event, we will lean on Brad’s relationship with Mathilde, as we get to know her and her family’s wines. If you would like to learn more about Mathilde, you can visit her Instagram page by clicking here: https://www.instagram.com/mathildemargaine/?hl=en

We look forward to meeting her, guided by Brad’s moderation.

TO BE PART OF THE EVENT, PLEASE READ THE FOLLOWING. THANK YOU.

Date/Time: Saturday, May 23rd @ 10AM PT / 1PM ET / 1700 Paris

Theme: If you own Margaine, open one. Or, you can choose to open another Champagne and enjoy the event.

How To Connect: To get the Zoom link to connect to the event, send a private message to Frank Murray III. I will then send you the link in a private reply. Once you receive the link, please do NOT forward it.

We’ll be muting everyone’s audio so we can eliminate background noise. You’ll also be optioned to turn on your camera if you like…just come to learn, share and be part of the fellowship we are creating.









Margaine is one of my favorite producers in all of Champagne and they just happen to be from one of my favorite villages, Villers-Marmery. Mathilde is working with her father Arnaud and adding her own touch to the work in the vines and winery. She is bright, passionate and already doing great things forming a sort of dynamic duo with her father. The Margaine family has some of the best plots in the village and one plot in particular Champs d’Enfer (aka Devil’s Field or Field of Hell) that I think is one of the best in all of Champagne. Their wine range is currently firing on all cylinders and they take a very curious and precise approach to their vines and wines. While taking different natural approaches in the vines, they also utilize a mix of glass, steel, oak, malo, and no malo in the winery - and all the approaches vary based on the year and what nature gives them. This is going to be a fun and energetic session. Please join us!

Thanks for the generous introduction Brad.

What makes Champs d’Enfer so special? Does the name refer to the difficulty of farming it? [wink.gif]

Jan,

It is difficult to say why one plot of land is so much better than another especially when exposition is the same and when soil research shows no differences from adjacent/nearby plots. Sometimes farming is even better on other similar plots, but one just shines brighter for some unknown reason. I think a lot of it is historical and what has gone on in that location for many centuries in terms of farming and what may have been on that plot.

For Champs d’Enfer in Villers-Marmery it has a good exposition being mid-slope and south facing. The terrain is very stony and chalky and it is somewhat steep which does make it a pain to farm and a bit unique for the village. The age of the vines with many dating back to 1921 and still doing well also helps out. The wine from this vineyard always stands out to me for its concentration of orange fruit, but also with incredible length and mineral structure. A dynamite expression of Chardonnay and on the Montagne de Reims, it, along with Les Blanches Voies in Rilly-la-Montagne, makes the best Chardonnay for my palate.

Brad,

Thanks for the detailed write-up. Steep slopes seems to bring that “It” factor to the wine no matter where they are - champagne, rhone, mosel, etc. I’ll keep my eyes open for both d’Enfer and Voies then!

Hi Brad,

Does this plot typically end up in the Special Club or elsewhere?

Thanks,
Steve

Here are some more photos to richen the visuals and give you a better eye into Margaine. Enjoy!

Reminder…click on the photo to enlarge and show the quality.
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It changes from year to year, but it normally goes into some collection of the Extra Brut (which can be a pure vintage or a blend), Blanc de Blancs Millesime, and/or Special Club (all three of these are often similar in blend). Champs d’Enfer is often fermented in a mix of steel and oak with a majority non-malolactic, but that again can change based on the year. Margaine likes to blend different vineyards together for most of his wines with the goal that the sum is often greater than the parts and because he often doesn’t have enough volume from any one vineyard to fulfill the quantity necessary for a cuvee. His Alouettes vineyard is the only one I can recall where the volume and quality was deemed high enough to fulfill solo bottling. Many of the older Special Clubs came exclusively from this site. As with everything they do, every year is different - there are no rules.

I really wish they would bottle this alone, but they only have 0.4ha in this vineyard which results in only 4,000 bottles and, in most cases, they need more than that for any of their wines. Also, if they bottled it separately, the other wines would suffer. In know in some years, the Special Club or Blanc de Blancs Millesime has been up to 80% Champs d’Enfer.

Jan,

The other difference in this vineyard vs. most of the rest of the village and even the nearby villages of Verzy and Verzenay is that Champs d’Enfer has a much deeper and rock filled soil over chalk. The vines’ roots have to really go deep to reach the chalk and water table. This combined with its exposition which results in riper fruit than most other areas give it a unique character.

Brad,

Thank you for all the great info. I searched Margaine’s wines in my area and I mostly see the basic cuvee available, labelled “tradionelle”. I see that they do a Brut and a Demi-Sec version. What’s your impression of the demi-sec? It’s not often that a grower does a demi-sec, with many going for the opposite route of zero-dosage/extra brut wines, so it sparked my curiosity.

Jan,

I think their Demi-Sec is top notch. Dosage is normally 28-33 g/L vs. 8 g/L in the Brut, but otherwise the wine is the same. In some years, I actually prefer the Demi-Sec over the Brut for the first couple of years. It is one of the best sweeter wines in Champagne and never tastes overly sweet, but rather has a lot of juicy, honeyed, peach and apricot flavors along with sweet doughy notes. It still has structure and comes across as balanced. It is fun to try the Brut and Demi-Sec side by side.

Also, in looking back through my notes, I see that Margaine’s Extra Brut released in 2012 was a pure 2006 vintage and a pure Champs d’Enfer so they have bottled this plot alone. This bottling was only 1,000 bottles and I no longer have any, but it was good and showcased more power and minerality than the typical Margaine wine.

Another fascinating item about Margaine is that the estate served as a hospital for the Allied Forces in World War I. Vilers-Marmery was an allied hub in World War I and quite a battlefield, but still some of the soldiers found time to help at harvest. While the Margaine family had been growing grapes since 1890, at the conclusion of World War I, in 1920, they began making their own wines. You can still find artwork in the winery that was made by the Allied Forces from World War I. One example can be found here.

Join us in this virtual visit and you can learn all about the history of Margaine and the village!

Brad,

Wow, sounds delicious!

Unfortunately, I don’t the Extra Brut around me, and I guess finding exactly the 2012 is nearly impossible now. But I’ll made sure to snap the Demi-Sec very soon!

Brad,

Thanks for all of the great information.

+1

No enlargement needed to detect the quality in the first photo.

This is going to be a great discussion and will offer a different pespective than what we have done so far. I hope we get a large group to participate with Mathilde.

One of the major topics we will be covering is what it means to be a young woman who is diving head first into working in the vines and winery. There is and always has been a large presence of women in Champagne, but, more often than not, it has been on the business/commercial/marketing side of things especially with the smaller producers or growers. In many cases, Mathilde is the only woman at meetings of various vinegrowers and winemakers. Currently, the top Champagne winemakers and vinegrowers still trend towards being men and often men much older than she is. Her perspective of fitting into this world is a great conversation.

We will talk about much more than this, but this is one element that you can only get from someone like Mathilde. Come join us and have some fun!

Brad, I love the gender aspect of this discussion, and to talk with her about how she has to confront and prove her competence (often for women, over-prove it because of bias and other ignorance that comes with being the outsider).

One of the best wines I had last year was the 2008 Godme Alouettes Saint Bets, which is the same plot in Villers-Marmery that she also farms and uses for her Margaine wines, such as her Special Club. It’s unique that this plot is 100% Chard in what is Pinot Noir all up and down the Montagne. It will be cool to talk to her about farming Chardonnay in the Montagne.

Should be an excellent discussion, so I ask all of you to keep signing up and show support for these events, for someone like Mathilde who is working to carry on the domaine and lead it into their next chapter. All of the PMs are caught up again but I would like to see another 10 more, to really fill out the event and show her some strong WB support.

Frank,

Great point on Alouettes or Alouettes St. Bets (depending on which naming convention you like). For many of the older Margaine Special Clubs, Alouettes was the main or only vineyard in the blend. It wasn’t until Mathilde’s father Arnaud started to put his fingerprint on the wines that the blend started to change based on what the vintage gave. I think the wines are better for it now, but some of those old Special Clubs are amazing. In a 2018 tasting of (18) Special Clubs from 1978 and 1979, the 1979 Margaine was far and away the best of the bunch.

Drinking an ‘M’ de Margaine right now and wow is this good. This perpetual cuvee of wines from 2002-2012 is just plain awesome. 95% Chardonnay, 5% Pinot Noir; disgorged early in 2019; dosage is 4.5 g/L; only 1,000 bottles released. It kicks off with a toasty nose and a rich orange, creamy, toasty palate. So easy to drink with a perfect balance of tart structure and honeyed fruit. It gains in body and length as it warms up and airs out. This is one of the best perpetual reserve wines out there and highly recommended. It drinks far above its price point. Search it out!

Come join us on Saturday and learn more about Margaine, Mathilde’s journey, this wine, and some other secrets that the future holds. Just send Frank a message to get a link for this meeting. I am excited for this one.