Benoît Marguet - Champagne, France (new arrivals just in)

RADICAL CHAMPAGNE OF BENOIT MARGUET

Our introductory article on Benoit Marguet from May 2015.

It's Champagne time, friends... Well, yeah, when is it not? But today we are particularly tickled to announce an exciting new Champagne producer, Benoit Marguet of Marguet Père et Fils. The Champagne house is not new at all, but the wines are new to Oregon and making their debut here at E&R.

We met with Benoit last year after being briefly introduced to him (and his horse) by Benoit Lahaye the previous year. In a way, Marguet is sort of "new" in that Benoit officially took over his family's domaine in 2005 and began to make what many Champenois, including his father, would refer to as radical changes. Benoit is a bit of a lone wolf in his principles and practices. Despite his impeccable English, it’s challenging to translate and convey the sense of connection Benoit has to his vineyards, his cellar, his horses, his domaine – his work. But it’s easy to understand his passion and commitment and to taste the results in his wines. 

All of Benoit’s vineyards are biodynamically certified and the small amount of fruit he purchases from other growers is always organic and/or biodynamic (and from some of Champagne’s most respected growers). He plows with horses whenever possible, preps his own biodynamic and homeopathic vineyard treatments, carefully manages yields, uses native yeasts for all his fermentations, adds little to no sulfur, ferments and raises the wines in oak barrels and takes extreme care in all aspects of winemaking.  Dosage levels are low, as his Champagnes are wine first; balanced and with a strong sense of terroir.
 
It’s not being organic that makes Marguet’s wines great (we just tasted some organic Champagnes last week, in fact, that were not so great), it’s whatever that thing is within him that drives him to focus so fastidiously on every detail. Whatever his reasoning is for working in a natural way, his vineyards and wines flourish from the extreme care brought on by his passion and work. The wines speak for themselves, as they are explosively expressive and beautifully built.

Benoit, a staunch believer in expression of site through proper farming (his vineyards are all certified organic or biodynamic), began bottling "terroir" wines with the single vineyard "Les Crayeres" in 2008. Each year since, he has separately bottled new wines that are either an expression of a single vineyard or a designated cru vineyard area (such as Ambonnay, Les Mesnil or Bouzy, for example). These ambitious new wines, produced in small quantities and only in years that allow for the highest quality - and several brand new bottling by village will be in soon. 
(Article by S.S.)

Click on each wine for more detail.