georges laval
Vincent Laval
Cumières
grande vallée - champagne
story…
Four generations of the Laval family have been tending vines in Champagne and they have been producing estate bottled wines since the 1970’s. Georges Laval, Vincent’s father, was the first to begin bottling wines at the domaine in 1971. Vincent officially joined the family business in 1991 after finishing his studies, and as of 1996 he has been at the helm of the estate.
Georges set the standard for the quality of the wines coming from this tiny estate and Vincent really hasn’t changed much since he took the reins. The vineyards have been farmed organically since 1971, after Georges read a report from by Jacques Cousteau noting that he and his team had found residual pesticides in the ice of the Arctic, an area with essentially no crops to have been treated with said pesticides. The domaine was one of the first to make the conversion to organics, and for many years was one of only a handful of producers to farm in this manner.
farming & Philosophy…
The Laval’s have about 2.5 hectares of vineyard holdings that they farm organically, certified Ecocert, along with some biodynamic practices. To avoid any chemical overspray from neighboring plots the Laval’s go a few steps further to protect their soils & vines by treating about 30 additional acres of vines with their own organic treatments. They also were able to get all aerial treatment companies to distance their overhead treatments more than 15m from any of the families organic plots. They even went as far as to trade parcels with other growers in order to have all their plots in specific lieu dits be all one cohesive parcel as opposed to separate parcels throughout a given vineyard site.
All vineyard work is done by hand and there are only 4 people, including Vincent, who carry out all this work. Plowing is done by horse in all of their plots. All of their organic treatments and sprays are used only when necessary and with as little as possible.
Cellar work mirrors their work in the vineyards, by hand and with minimal intervention. All vinification is done with native yeasts and in barrel. Vincent likes to leave the fermented juice in barrel longer than most, opting to bottle them around 10 months after harvest. SO2 is kept to an absolute minimum and he rarely adds any dosage to the wines. None of the wines are fined or filtered, all clarification happens naturally with the juice left to settle. Once in bottle the wine is left on the lees for 18-48 months, depending on the cuvée, before being disgorged.
Vineyards…
Of the 2.5 hectares of vines that the Laval’s own and farm, 2 of them are in Cumières and only a 1/2 hectare is located in Chembrecy in the Montagne de Reims. The fruit from the Chambrecy parcel goes into Vincent’s only wine produced with reserve juice, Garennes. However the wines of the domaine are really all about Cumières and the families holdings in the village.
Although the entire production rarely hits 10,000 bottles annually, Vincent does manage to carve out 3 distinct bottlings from single vineyard sites alongside his two village labeled bottlings. His single vineyard bottlings include; Les Chênes, Les Hautes Chèvres and the most recent addition to the line-up Les Longues Violes.
Les Chênes
the Laval plot in Les Chênes lies mid slope with a due south facing on chalk subsoil and a very thin topsoil layer of clay-loam | this bottling is from an old vine selection of 100% Chardonnay | the first bottling of this stand alone lieu dit was with the 1994 vintage
Les Hautes Chèvres
planted to Pinot Noir & Pinot Meunier located in the upper reaches of the mid slope on clay-limestone soils | originally a Pinot Noir only bottling, this is where most of Laval’s Pinot Noir is located, it is now a 100% Pinot Meunier bottling after Vincent had to pull out is old vine Pinot Noir in 2012 | the Meunier vines were all planted between 1931 & 1971
Les Longues Violes
a massale selection planted vineyard with Pinot Meunier vines planted in 1947 and Pinot Noir vines that were planted in 1964 and 1984 | the first bottling of this single lieu dit was with the 2012 vintage, 100% Pinot Noir | the wine has yet to be released
