Les Fourches

When Fabien Cazé — tenth generation, admitted to the Terres et Vins de Champagne collective after just his second release — declared 2018 his first certified-organic vintage, he was simultaneously navigating Champagne's hottest, most opulent growing season in years. The tension between that generous fruit and his deliberately austere winemaking philosophy is what defines Les Fourches 2018.

The fruit originates from Cazé-Thibaut's 2.66-hectare holding on the right bank of the Marne, where clay-limestone soils with sandy clay topsoil over shallow chalk bedrock on east- and south-facing slopes in Châtillon-sur-Marne and Vandières impose a chalky mineral tension even in warm years. The chalk subsoil's drainage kept 2018's heat from tipping into flabbiness.

Grapes were hand-harvested parcel by parcel, pressed in a Coquard inclined-plate press, then gravity-fed into tank before a portion transferred into 228–350 L oak barrels for spontaneous native-yeast fermentation — long and cold in the 19th-century vaulted chalk cellar on rue des Crayères. Malolactic fermentation was not sought, the cellar's low ambient temperatures preventing its completion. Dosage sits at Extra Brut level (1.7–2.7 g/L), with no fining, no filtration.

What breaks the rules here: in a region historically defined by blended, MLF-completed, Pinot Meunier NV Champagne, Cazé-Thibaut applies Côte des Blancs-level parcel discipline to unclassified Marne Valley terroir — and in 2018, that restraint meets atypically full-bodied, opulent fruit head-on.

The 2018 vintage's warmth delivers a richer, more generous profile than the house's leaner norms; drink now through 2030 for peak integration of fruit and chalk-driven tension.