De Sousa
De Sousa farms 9.5 hectares in Avize on the Côte des Blancs, mostly in grand cru sites. Erick and Michelle de Sousa run the family estate together with their three children: Charlotte in sales, Julie in the vineyards, Valentin in the cellar. The vines average over 45 years old; chardonnay makes up 60 percent of plantings, with pinot noir at 30 percent and meunier at 10 percent. Erick de Sousa is a pioneer of organic and biodynamic farming in Champagne, and the plots used for the Cuvée Mycorhize are worked exclusively by horse. The cellars are cut into chalk and hold a constant ten degrees.
The de Sousa family in Avize
Manuel de Sousa fought as a Portuguese soldier alongside France in the First World War and settled in Avize after the war, never leaving again. He died in 1929 at the age of 29 from a brain tumour. His son Antoine married Zoémie Bonville, daughter of a long-established winegrowing family, and in the 1950s the two founded the estate from which today's champagne house emerged. Their name still appears on the Cuvée Zoemie de Sousa. When Erick was born in 1963, the family named the estate De Sousa & Fils; Erick de Sousa later studied in Beaune before returning to Champagne.
Grand cru sites between Avize and Le Mesnil
The 9.5 hectares lie mostly in the grand cru villages of the Côte des Blancs, in Avize, Cramant, Oger, Le Mesnil-sur-Oger and Chouilly. These are complemented by pinot noir plots in Aÿ and Ambonnay, as well as smaller holdings in the Vallée de la Marne and the Côte des Bar. Chardonnay accounts for 60 percent of the vineyard area, pinot noir 30 percent and meunier 10 percent, and the average vine age exceeds 45 years.
The origin is written into the wines' names. The Cuvée 3A brings together Avize, Aÿ and Ambonnay, while the Cuvée des Caudalies is a pure chardonnay, spicy and mineral, also released as a separate bottling sourced solely from Le Mesnil. The Réserve Extra Brut is likewise a blanc de blancs from grand cru sites.
Organic farming and work with the horse
In the late 1990s, Erick de Sousa began the conversion to organic farming, at a time when this was still rare in Champagne. The estate works the plots of the Cuvée Mycorhize exclusively by horse, which avoids soil compaction and encourages root growth. The cuvée's name refers to mycorrhiza, the symbiosis between fungi and plant roots, and so to the interplay between soil and vine.
Chalk cellars and oak ageing
De Sousa's cellars are cut into the chalk and hold a constant ten degrees, which slows and protects maturation. Erick de Sousa was among the first in Avize to use oak barrels in vinification, for the texture and depth they give the wines. The Tradition Brut blends 50 percent chardonnay, 40 percent pinot noir and 10 percent meunier.