Champagne Caze-Thibaut Le Chemins des Plants Extra Brut

When Fabien Cazé — tenth generation, admitted into the Terres et Vins de Champagne collective after just his second release — planted his flag in Vandières, he made a deliberate choice that defines this cuvée: 100% Chardonnay from a region historically dismissed as Pinot Meunier country, vinified with the parcel-level rigour usually reserved for the Côte des Blancs. The south-facing Vandières slopes sit on clay-limestone topsoil over shallow chalk bedrock, a geology that drives vertical root penetration and delivers a saline, chalky tension rarely associated with the western Marne Valley. Approximately half the juice undergoes spontaneous native-yeast fermentation in 228–350 L oak barrels — a mix of sizes that avoids dominant wood character — inside a 19th-century vaulted chalk corridor on rue des Crayères in Venteuil, where ambient cold temperatures suppress malolactic fermentation without intervention. The result is a Champagne built on raw malic acidity rather than lactic softness. Extended lees aging en tirage and a dosage of 1.7–2.7 g/L Extra Brut — determined by blind tasting before disgorgement — complete a process that is unfined and unfiltered. The special feature: a Chardonnay-only expression from an unclassified Marne Valley village, made without MLF, that argues the western Marne deserves the same parcel scrutiny as Cramant or Avize. The 2017 vintage, a year of frost-reduced yields and concentrated, tightly wound fruit, should be at peak tension now through 2027.