suenen
Aurélien Suenen
cramant
Côtes des blancs - champagne
story…
The origins of Suenen date back to the late 1800’s when Aurélien’s ancestors moved to the Cramant area, although they were not really involved in wine, they did collect and sell grapes to wine-making houses. Wine became a part of the family tradition when his great grandfather Marcel and his wife Simone decided to bottle and sell a single vat of Blanc des Blancs that they named “Champagne Suenen Stourbe”, hand bottled and stamped by Simone. The family trade continued with Marcel & Simone’s sons, Bernard and André. Then in the 1950’s Arélien’s father, Daniel was born and with Daniel is where Champagne Suenen really starts to flourish.
Daniel worked with his father for 18 years before taking control of the business, soon after he began to expand the family holdings and increase production. He took the sales of wine from around 4,000 bottles to 20,000 bottles and also produced the first vintage dated wines from the family.
Aurélien took the helm at Suenen in 2009 and has since refocused and adjusted the family holdings as well as the bottlings put out by the Suenen label. He currently is only bottling Blanc des Blancs Champagne however he still retains about 2 hectares of Pinot Noir and Meunier most of which he sells to other producers.
farming & Philosophy…
Work in the vineyards is primarily organic although he does implement some biodynamic practices. Aurélien is not one to subscribe to labels or adhere to strict rules set by specific schools of farming. Preferring to rely on these schools as reference points and piece together his own philosophy and approach to farming to create a system that works best for his terroir and vines.
Cellar practices are not out of the ordinary, but he certainly is in the minority in the region. Choosing to vinify around 1/4 of all his wine in oak of various sizes, the rest is done in old enameled steel tanks. Recently he has started working with foudre and demi-muids from the highly sought after Austrian cooper, Stockinger, used for both fermentations and aging. His single vineyard bottlings are fermented and aged entirely in barrel before bottling. Fermentations are increasingly done natively with ambient yeasts, but some inoculation is still carried out for some of the wine. All malolactic fermentation that takes place occurs naturally, dependent on the vintage and characteristics of the fruit for each particular bottling. All of his wines spend about 9 months in oak and/or concrete on the lees before being bottled. His village cuvée’s age a further 2 years on the lees in bottle and his single vineyard wines spend 5 years on the lees in bottle, all are aged under cork. Dosages very between 1-2 g/l depending on the year and bottlings, but all are labeled extra-brut.
Vineyards…
In total Aurélien farms about 5 hectares of vineyards, 3 of which are planted exclusively to Chardonnay in Chouilly, Cramant, & Oiry. The remaining 2 hectares are located in the Massif de Saint-Thierry north of Reims planted to Pinot Noir and Meunier. There is only one parcel of this fruit that he keeps for himself, La Grande Vigne, a 65 year old plot of ungrafted Pinot Meunier located in the village of Montigny-sur-Vesle.
Aurélien has begun bottling several single vineyard, vintage dated Champagnes. This began with the 2012 harvest with the “Les Robarts” from Cramant which was disgorged and released in late 2017 for the first time. Then in 2013 he produced single vineyard bottlings of “Montaigu” from Chouilly, “La Cocluette” from Oiry and the “La Grande Vigne” from Montigny-sur-Vesle.
Les Robarts
A lieu-dit that lies on the border of Avize & Cramant with vines in both villages | Aurélien’s parcel is on the Cramant side right along the Avize border at the top of a small hill with roughly 30 cm of silty clay topsoil over degraded Campanian chalk | originally planted in 1952, then again in 1978 & 1984 | largely massale selection vines | vines average around 38 years old
