story…

The Sergent family has a long history of growing vines in the Vrigny region, dating back at least as far as the mid-nineteenth century. During a majority of this time the family produced and bottled wines at the local cooperative and sold them under the Roger Sergent label. Guillaume’s father built a faithful following for the family wines and they continued to produce and sell the wines until 2008, when Guillaume and his brother took control of the family estate. As is typical when a new generation takes over a family estate the family holdings were split between the two brothers. Guillaume kept just around 1.5 hectares of the family holdings, while the remaining 2 hectares went to Guillaume’s brother who now sells his fruit to Moët.

For several years Guillaume continued to sell his fruit to the local co-op, mostly for economic reasons, this ended with the first release of his own wines in 2011. Prior to taking over the family estate Guillaume had obtained a degree in geology and trained as oenologist. He worked for several well known Champagne producers, including interning at Louis Roederer.

Guillaume’s holdings lie exclusively in two neighboring villages, Vrigny and Coulommes, with a roughly 40% Chardonnay, 40% Pinot Meunier, & 20% Pinot Noir split across his parcels. Currently Guillaume’s production is incredibly small, around 3,000 bottles total. His first commercial release was with the 2011 vintage and he only produced about 600 bottles, then in 2012 only about 900 bottles. For the first few years he only produced one cuvée, Les Prés Dieu, a 100% Chardonnay Blanc des Blancs. He has since added a second cuvée, Chemin des Chappes a Blanc de Noir produced with 50% Pinot Meunier & 50% Pinot Noir.

farming & Philosophy…

Although you could easily define Guillaume’s farming as being decidedly organic or beyond organic, Guillaume is pretty adamant about not being labeled as any one thing. His philosophy when it comes to farming is to work the vines the best he can while maintaining respect for the plants and the soil. Guillaume holds 15 separate parcels across the two villages all of which he farms himself and although he is not one to subscribe to labels all of his practices are strictly organic or biodynamic in nature. He utilizes the lunar calendar for much of the vineyard operations and employees native cover crops in nearly all of his parcels. He has started to use horse drawn plowing in a smaller portion of his vineyards, particularly his old vine, massal selection Meunier and Pinot Noir holdings.

Currently Guillaume does not have a winemaking facility or equipment of his own, so he continues to utilize the local co-op process his fruit. Though this may sound like he is making a co-op wine, it is in reality a lot like using a custom crush facility. Guillaume has full control of his fruit when it is processed at the co-op and he utilizes their pneumatic presses for all his fruit destined to be bottled under his own label, all of which are pressed on their own. All of the primary fermentations take place with indigenous yeasts in 500 liter François Fréres demi-muids that are at least 4+ years old. Guillaume prefers these larger barrels for his Chardonnay wines over the more commonly used 228 liter barriques, he finds the wines are more fresh and show a more pronounced minerality in the larger format. He does incorporate 400 liter & 228 liter barrels in the fermentations of his Blanc des Noirs, these smaller barrels tend to impart to much oak character to Chardonnay but he finds them to be perfect for his Pinot Noir & Meunier.

Guillaume is a firm believer in the use of wood for his fermentations, but he does not like to raise any of his wines in wood post primary fermentations. All of the wine goes through malolactic before being bottled, typically in January following harvest, and the wines are never filtered, fined or cold stabilized. Guillaume’s use of SO2 is quite low, and typically only takes place once, during pressing. Generally the SO2 levels are around 45 ppm total, or less. All riddling is done by hand for both of his cuvées.

Vineyards…

Guillaume owns and farms a total of 15 separate parcels, however his current production is focused on only 4 of those parcels: Vignes Dieu in Coulommes and Les Prés, Les Grands Chemins, and Les Chappes in Vrigny.

• Vignes Dieu

  a 100% Chardonnay parcel with southern exposure planted in Bartonian limestone rubble and seashell fossil heavy subsoil with fine sand topsoil | located near a border forest that helps regulate the temperature year round

• Les Prés

  a 100% Chardonnay parcel with an eastern exposure planted in Bartonian limestone rubble and seashell fossil heavy subsoil with fine sand topsoil | located near a forest tree line that helps regulate the year round temperature

• Les Grands Chemins

  a parcel of massale selection Pinot Noir & Meunier planted in 1972 in sandy soils with an eastern exposure

• Les Chappes

  a parcel of massale selection Pinot Noir & Meunier planted in 1982 in primarily silty soils with a western exposure | this parcel is located on the border of Egly Ouriet’s parcels in Vrigny

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