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The history of Guy Remi Champagne House
History of our Champagne House
Small estate located in the Marne Valley in the village of Baslieux sous Chatillon. Nathalie REMI and Jérémy CHEVAL are the two associates of the company named after their father and grandfather.
“We cultivate 4 ha 05 ares of vines in the Champagne appellation which are planted with the 3 main grape varieties of Champagne: 30 ares of Chardonnay, 90 ares of Pinot Noir and 2 ha 85 ares of Pinot Meunier. 3 ha 15 ares, are located in the village of Baslieux and 90 ares in the villages of Cerseuil and Troissy. The average age of the vines is about 30 years (the oldest is 85 years, the youngest 11 years).
For several years now, I have been making changes to my cultivation methods:
- Shorter cut
- Less fertilization and systematic use of organic fertilizers
- Reduction of phytopharmaceutical products, choosing molecules less dangerous for the environment and I use more and more products authorized in Organic Agriculture.
- All herbicides are suppressed (today there is a central weed strip and mechanical weeding between the feet).
- Mating disruption (First Year: 1999)
- In 2020 the HVE (High Environmental Value) and VDC (Sustainable Viticulture in Champagne) certifications.
- For 2021, the first conversion to Organic Agriculture tests.
All the vines are harvested exclusively by hand ! All our grapes are bottled. We don't sell to traders. We pull about 30,000 bottles. The grapes are pressed at the village cooperative, and the wine is vinified by myself (president and cellar master). I work with Mr Bernard Richet, an oenologist by profession who has accompanied us for 30 years.
The wine presses are Coquard: 2 traditional wooden ones and 1 automatic one with a sloping plate. The settling of the must is done in closed vats, cold (15°C) and with enzymes. Fermentation is carried out with selected yeasts and under thermo-regulation. We make our red wine from Pinot Meunier for our Rosé blend. The grapes are sorted by each picker in the vineyard, and then passed on a sorting table before the destalking machine. A carbonic maceration is carried out in order to get more colour, then yeasting with selected yeasts. I made the choice to have several vintages of red wine in a vat.
With this "Solera" principle, our red wine keeps an organoleptic balance from year to year.”
The Champagne House
Nathalie Remi & Jérémy Cheval
Nathalie Remi
Following my father's footsteps, I became a winegrower, a feminine link between two male generations.
How lucky!
Propelled by my parents into the Champagne world,
and now being challenged by my nephew's fresh ideas.
What an adventure!!
A job requiring adaptation, questioning, humility and self-sacrifice: a priesthood...
But what a joy to share your happiness!
Jérémy Cheval
I am a young winegrower born in 1986 in Paris region, of parents from Marne and winegrowers' children. Throughout my childhood, I came on holiday to my grandparents' home in Baslieux sous Châtillon. I discovered nature, animals, the countryside and the Passion of Vines. I liked it so much that I chose to go and learn the culture of the vine, in the same vocational school as my grandfather. After 4 years of study, I came out of it with my CGEA professional baccalaureate. In July 2005, I joined the family business with my aunt Nathalie and my grandfather Guy. I carried out my first harvest at the age of 18.
In 2006, I joined the board of directors of the village cooperative. They all immediately gave me responsibilities. I became the second in vat room in the winemaking process. I brought in new and innovative ideas, which I had learnt during my student years.
I am also starting to change the methods of production in the vineyard, which is a source of a little discord with my ancestors. I managed to show what I could do, starting with trials in a few plots, which have now become effective on the whole estate. No more chemical weeding! Since 2015, all the plots have been weeded with natural flora. Weed-killing tillage is carried out under the rows.
Over the years, the wines have changed, I find more minerality, more fruitiness, the wines have improved. My decision to go back to the basics, to return to the roots, became a reality with the 2016 harvest. That year, when I took over the presidency of the cooperative, I wished to make a wine with more terroir. I chose the Meunier grape variety, endemic to our region, the "Vallée de la Marne", which is only found in Champagne.
Still following trials and advice from my oenologist, I started an ancestral winemaking process, owning two plots of vines over 60 years old, one of which was planted before the Second World War with plants selected by my paternal great-grandfather. These grapes are pressed in the cooperative's oldest press (1962), which is still wooden. Their vinification is carried out in oak barrels with their own yeasts and bottled according to the moon, to get the best out of them.
In 2019, the jury of the " Young Talents of Champagne " competition awarded me the Golden Grape trophy in the Blending category, thanks to the Tradition cuvée.
Many other ideas are still in my mind, they will come in the future years...
The wine press
Our vines
Our vines at dawn
