Cote de Val Vilaine

When Cédric Bouchard founded Roses de Jeanne in 2000, he became the first grower in the Aube to bottle a single-vineyard, single-vintage Champagne — a Burgundian parcellaire logic applied to a region the establishment had long dismissed as peripheral. The Côte de Val Vilaine is a 1.42–1.5 ha lieu-dit in Polisy, planted in 1974 by Bouchard père, its vines now exceeding 40 years of age on Kimmeridgian clay-limestone soils structurally identical to those of Chablis — the same marine-fossil bedrock that drives saline tension and chalky precision rather than the broad, creamy texture associated with Marne Champagne.

Yields are held at a punishing 20–30 hl/ha — under a third of the regional norm. Only first-pressing cuvée juice is used; tailles are discarded. Primary fermentation proceeds with indigenous yeasts in stainless steel, malolactic fermentation is completed, and the wine rests approximately 10 months on lees in cuve before tirage. Post-disgorgement, Val Vilaine ages ~15–16 months sur lattes. No oak touches the wine at any stage.

The defining technical transgression: tirage is dosed to target just ~3.75–4.25 bars of pressure versus the Champagne standard of 6 bars, producing a mousse so soft and integrated that Bouchard recommends Burgundy glasses — or light decanting — over flutes. Zero dosage, unfined, unfiltered. This is 100% Pinot Noir with nowhere to hide.