Montagne de Reims · Frankreich
Adrien Renoir
You can taste the village: salty chalk, ripe red fruit and the taut tension of great Pinot Noir slopes. Behind it all stands Adrien Renoir, a fourth-generation winemaker in the Grand Cru village of Verzy on the northern edge of the Montagne de Reims. In 2014, at the age of 29, he took over his father's five hectares – all in Verzy, with vines planted between 1961 and 1971. What began conventionally as "Champagne Vincent Renoir" he gradually transformed: no herbicides from 2015, organically certified since 2020, ageing in neutral oak barrels, spontaneous fermentation with native yeasts. A single-village producer who disgorges his Champagnes without any addition of sulphur.
Five hectares, a single village, a single classification: Adrien Renoir's Champagne comes exclusively from Verzy, one of the 17 villages of Champagne classified as Grand Cru. Anyone who knows Champagne as a blend of interchangeable origins will experience the opposite here.
Verzy: a village at the edge of the forest
Verzy lies on the northern arc of the Montagne de Reims, where the vines meet the forest, famous for the Faux de Verzy, centuries-old, strangely twisted dwarf beeches. The subsoil is pure chalk: rich in belemnites, cool and water-retaining, the source of that saline tension in the glass. Renoir's parcels are planted with old vines dating from between 1961 and 1971, a massal selection that brings a depth young plantings rarely achieve.The quiet revolution from 2014
Until 2014 the estate was called Champagne Vincent Renoir; Adrien's father worked carefully but conventionally, with hand harvesting and stainless steel tanks. With the handover a quiet conversion began: herbicides disappeared from 2015, the switch to organic farming followed in 2016 and certification in 2020, complemented by biodynamic practice. Today cover crops flower between the rows instead of bare earth. Verzy is Pinot Noir country: Pinot Noir provides body and red fruit, while Chardonnay from the highest sites brings freshness.
Wood, yeast, no sulphur
Renoir does not want to stand in the wine's way. The base wines ferment spontaneously with their own yeasts, increasingly in neutral wooden casks rather than steel tanks, without temperature control. They spend a long time on the lees; disgorgement takes place without added sulphur, an uncompromising choice, since any flaw would then end up in the glass. Dosages remain minimal, Extra Brut throughout.