Champagne Eric RODEZ à AMBONNAY Grand Cru

 

 

 

 

.For quite a few decades, the RODEZ family have been working in the Champagne region and for the Champagne wines. As our family history dates back to a century, we pride ourselves in creating wines exclusively from the grapes of our own production. Our vineyard , which spreads on the AMBONNAY-BOUZY hillside, provides us with grapes offering a great potential. This quality is the ultimate achievement of an association of favourable factors. The soil of the different places where we grow grapes is thin and based on a chalky layer, which brings moist and gives back at night the warmth stored during daytime. The South-South-East exposition enables the grapes to enjoy the sunlight from dawn to sunset. Finally, a favourable micro-climate offers us the few tenth of Celsius degrees that might make a difference. We are lucky enough to exploit the expression possibilities of the wines from grapes classified Vintage Wine 100%. This classification dates back to when a scale of vintage wines from Champagne was established. The Champagne region has always passioned people through the Champagne wine. Dreams, pictures conveyed by this f amous drink are the stimulus that prevents us from being content with our success, at the risk of producing one day a simply common beverage. A total cultivated area of 77.800 acres we affectively call our "terroir", spreading over 320 towns and villages provides us with a highly quantitative and qualitative potential. As our vineyard is the most northern in France, it fears climatic changes, but it nonetheless remains a temptation for men...... It is up to us, men and women from Champagne, to work in order not to simply enjoy our region, but in order to enjoy the pleasure of offering others the bubbles of happiness. The name Champagne covers a variety of wines. The Champagne, just as other regions producing guaranteed vintage wines (AOC), must follow the rules set for its guarantee, among which vine plant selection. Only three types of vine plants are allowed in our region : - the "pinot noir" ( a widespread vine in France, also to be found in Burgundy) : wines from this vine are known to bring a full-bodied structured dense and fruity wine, to sum up the masuline side of the wine. -the "chardonnay" (only white vine plant in Champagne) : unlike the pinot noir, the wines from this vine will be more lively, more nervous, more floral in their taste, with hints of green fruits. Incorporated in small quantities when blending time has come, it will bring more delicacy and thus convey the female side of the wine. -the "pinot meunier" (the second red vine plant) : the characteristics of this vine are very close to those of the pinot noir, with slightly more vinosity and depth of tasteness. This vine will also enable the blending to mature in a faster way. Whereas consumers are generally aware of the professional categories involved in wine-growing, they usually don't know about the vintage wines scale. Indeed, as all the regions offering consumers a guarantee on vintage wines, the Champagne region has established a scale reflecting the quality of the grapes grown in our various vineyards. The first scale was established at the end of the 19th century. Unlike Burgundy, where portions of vineyard are rated according to their quality, the classification in the Champagne region includes all the vineyards from a specific village, i.e. 320 villages. Moreover, the classification takes into account the geographical situation of each village and eventually informs of the potential quality of each would-be vintage wine. Nevertheless, taking advantage of this potential remains the most difficult aim to reach. The rates determined for each production are expressed from 100% to 80%. The 100% vintage wines are considered as offering the highest qualitative potential, taking into account the quality of the soil, the nature of the layers underneath and the micro-climate. Only 17 vintage wines are rated 100%. They are called Great Vintage Wines ( les Grands Crus). Let's remark that First Vintage Wines are rated 90% to 99%, then come the Second and Third Vintage Wines. AMBONNAY, with its medieval architecture, was a thriving place in the Middle Ages. It was erected on the spot of a Gallo-Roman villa. The discovery of a Merovingian cemetery in a place called "La Fontaine de Crilly" (Crilly Fountain) tends to show that it originated from this very place, where later Templar monks, belonging to "La Commanderie Saint Jean de Jerusalem" were to live. Those monks were great builders who, at the beginning of the 11th century, built our church, a beautiful example of Roman style turned into Gothic style along the years. From this time on, the vineyard has been part of village dwellers' everyday life, as shown by ornamental vine branches carved on some pillars of the church. In 1578, King of France Henry III allowed the Ambonnay community to dig moats around the village in order to gain protection, and to sell wine once a year, on Saint Luke's Day. This charter is engraved on a stele where the old market used to take place. AMBONNAY did not suffer too much from the wars of religion nor from other fights in which our region was always involved. From this more recent spot (the old market place), the streets and lanes spring from a central axis, a narrow way along which visitors will sometimes remark porches that are interesting from an aesthetic point of view. They allow entrance to the houses, which are usually closed by a wall (a particular feature of the Champagne region). The posts bearing the names given to the streets were made in wrought iron 25 years ago, thus offering the village a unique heritage. Located on the Côte des Grands Noirs de la Montagne de Reims, the AMBONNAY terroir spreads over an area of about 914 acres. At the very heart of the traditional Champagne region, the AMBONNAY - BOUZY hillside enjoys a South-South East exposition and takes advantage of favourable geological and pedological conditions, together with a micro-climate. These pre-requisites enable producers to obtain exceptionnal grapes. Thanks to these features, AMBONNAY has been rated among the Great Vintage Wines from Champagne since the scale was established in 1895. Because it is planted 130 metres above sea level, most part of the vineyard may often avoid the damages of spring freezing. The AMBONNAY terroir grows on hillsides where chalky soils comes near the surface, the latter being covered by a thin layer of mixed clay and limestone. Growing the pinot noir is thus facilitated and the grapes produced allow wine growers to obtain the fruity and vinous productions connoisseurs will appreciate. As it is lighter and finer, the Chardonnay vine is mostly planted on South East oriented hillsides. Some regions, the soils of which are mainly composed of clay and silica, may some years obtain a small production of a particularly elegant red wine, characterised by its sweet flavour, tasting of the grape. Connoisseurs will enjoy the Ambonnay Rouge. Ours is a family-run business comprising a 2.4 acre-large vineyard, all of which in Ambonnay. As planting the Pinot Meunier is not allowed when you want to obtain a Great Vintage Wine classification, our plantations are composed of 55% Pinot Noir and of 45% Chardonnay. Along the generations, but particularly since our grandparents' generation, we have been willing to produce Champagne instead of simply selling our grapes.We have been extending our Chardonnay vineyard in order to enjoy wider choices when blending. We have been working in a traditional way, nevertheless adding an ecological touch, though we don't like this word. In fact, we speak of "integration" more than of "ecology" as we tend to limit our use of chemicals. Indeed, why should we treat our vineyard against a parasite while it has not been present yet or is not mature enough to be treated? Our work is a traditional one : every year, we anxiously look forward to tasting our new wines. Then comes the blending, probably the most secret and individualistic part of the work. It is a real pleasure to stand in front of the wide range of samples of each wine of the year, to which must be added some wines stored since the previous years. We have to decide how to blend these samples, in order to achieve the final wine of the year, hoping not to have made the wrong choice. This final decision can be compared to a child's birth. Our ultimate pleasure is to please people. We are close to the year 2000.... We have decided, in order to celebrate the coming of the second Millenium, to elaborate an exceptional wine. None of us has ever experienced such an event and we will have to wait for another 1000 years before experiencing another one. This moment has, one generation after another, represented every hope and every anguish. To this occasion, we have elaborated a special Champagne : "La Cuvée Millénarium". It is the result of a long and deep search in order to choose the vintaged samples, the vine varieties, the hillsides where to plant them and the vinification modes. In other words, we have tried to create an outstanding Champagne. This magical moment, from which we have been so far and to which we are now so close, will undoubtedly be a great time of bliss which we will share with our loved ones. "La Cuvée Millenarium" will be a real fireworks of fine flavours and will make you explore, in your own way, the many feelings sensitivity can bring. This wine is powerful, joyous and tasting of the grape but its taste is also complex, long, deep and elegant. The wines elaborated in Champagne have enjoyed a European-wide success for centuries. Effervescence, discovered more recently, has brought Champagne wines its world-wide fame. Apart from the content, we have wished our bottles to tell the main events in the history of our wine.That is why we offer you the Cuvée Millenarium in a six-bottle-collection-package. Each bottle shows the most important event of each of the centuries that made up our millenium, without forgetting the 10th and the 21st century, for history is based on continuity. Our history will be your guide through your tasting of our "Cuvée Millenarium". For those of you who fear the 75 centilitres the bottles contain, you may want to know that we are able to provide you with a few jeroboams if you like !