Champagne Geoffroy

The Geoffroys have been in Cumières, in the Marne valley, since the early seventeenth century. The brand, by contrast, is recent: René Geoffroy and his wife Julienne created it in the early 1950s.

Jean-Baptiste, qualified in viticulture and oenology, took over at the end of the 1980s. In 2008 he and his wife Karine moved the winery to Aÿ, leaving the vineyard where it was.

Fourteen hectares on the slopes of Damery, Hautvillers, Fleury-la-Rivière and above all Cumières, a village classified Premier Cru, wedged between the river Marne and steep southeast-facing slopes. The split is 42% pinot noir, 39% meunier and 19% chardonnay.

Their most committing decision is to avoid malolactic fermentation. Much of Champagne encourages it for the opposite reason: it converts malic acid into lactic and softens the acidity, which is ever more tempting with warmer harvests.

Giving it up keeps the acidity, but it carries a cost that does not show on the label. If malolactic does not happen in the base wine, it may start during the second fermentation, already in the bottle, and that clouds the wine and is very hard to correct at that stage. Avoiding it means guarding against it for the whole life of the bottle.