Henri Giraud: a new Blanc with a black soul and the debut of MV13

Blanc de Craie is a new Champagne made only from Chardonnay, while Fût de Chêne has come out in a Mutiversion based on the 2013 harvest.

Aÿ was long considered to be the true capital of Champagne to the point that the some think the origin of the name Epernay, today home for some of the greatest and most important Maison de Champagne, was “Après Aÿ!” (After Aÿ), to indicate its strategic importance. In central Aÿ is the home of the old family maison Henri Giraud, with its history of vineyards and wine dating back to the Hémart family who settled there in 1628. The Giraud-Hémart name became an authentic catalyst for the production sparkling wine after, in the mid-18th century, Madeleine married Léon Giraud.

The Maison today has reached the family’s 13th generation of winemakers with Emmanuelle, the daughter of Claude Giraud, today responsible for the Maison’s. Her true innovative skill has allowed the Maison to create a style founded research and the harmony between two territories: one where the grapes are grown and the other the Argonne Forest which provides the wood for the barrels used for making the wine. At the helm of the winery today is her son-in-law Sebastien le Golvet, an enologist who is continuing a philosophy based on enhancing the potential of the terroir, focusing on the various expressions of Pinot Noir from different parcels in almost nine hectares of Grand Cru vineyards the Maison owns plus and a selection from another 20 hectares. The wine is made according to a very personal interpretation of how wood should be used in the different stages of winemaking and the importance of using only oak from the Argonne Forest (60km east of Reims) for the barriques. Claude, an enologist who studied in Bordeaux, explained this choice by stating that “forests also have a terroir the way vineyards do”. He then pointed out how up until the 1950 there were over 180 barrique producers using wood from that forest, with its clay soil rich in fossils, but then towards the 1980s Champagne producers increasingly began to opt for making the base wine in stainless steel, resulting in the gradual disappearance of the tonnelier (coopers).

After a 20-year study on the effects of the soil and microclimates on the oak trees used to provide the wood for barrels used in winemaking, Claude created a system to trace the wood according to the lieu dits of the Argonne Forest, associating each vineyards parcel with a specific wood. Together with the ripeness of the grapes, fermentation and maturation in wood, this gave the grapes a three dimensionality without aromatically suffocating the wine with thegoût de bois.

Claude Giraud buys new Argonne barriques every year because of the wood’s dense and hard structure, due to the fact it comes from over-100-year-old trees. This liaison between the vineyard and the forest led to the creation in 1990 of Fût de Chêne, which for ten years was produced as a vintage wine and for four editions has come out as a Multi-Vintage, with its debut based in the 2013 harvest, while the Maison has now created a new Champagne made only from Chardonnay, a cuvée named Blanc de Craie that demonstrates how even a Champagne Blanc can have a muscular and intense character.

Blanc de Craie

93/100 - € 80

100% Chardonnay. This new blanc de blancs from Giraud is deeply rooted in the area of Aÿ with 55% of the grapes from this Grand Cru village and 45% from villages in Montagne de Reims. In these villages the substrata of limestone chalk (Craie) can be thicker than 100m and this gives the grapes that vibrant energy which only the great terroir offer. The wine from the Aÿ grapes is made in barrels made from the Argonne forest, while the rest of the Chardonnay is made in stainless steel. After blending the wine it sits on the lees for at least 24 months.

The intense and captivating bouquet has notes of passion fruit, mango and crisp peach, aromatic herbs and juicy citrus which usher in a mouthfeel that is fresh yet has great structure, with the buttery richness of salty cookie dough, a rounded body ad a flavorful ad vital finish.

Fût de Chêne MV13

94/100 - € 150

A blend of 70% Pinot Noir and 30% Chardonnay. A manifesto of Claude Giraud’s vision of Champagne with its particular cork held in by a metal cage. Pinot Noir dominates the blend, more specifically the Petit Pinot clone that has had its habitat in Aÿ vineyards since the beginning of the 19th century. The juice from the Grand Cru grapes, both the first pressing and the taille, add vigor to the structure of the wine that ferments for ten days in new wood barriques from the Argonne Forest, also undergoing malolactic fermentation. Only 20% of the wine then matures for 12 months in new wood. In addition to wine from the latest harvest, 2013, 30% of the final blend is composed of vins de reserve kept in wood barrels and the wine sits on the lees for five years after which it is given a dosage of some 7g/l

The bouquet has an opulent profundity, a harmony of elder and magnolia flowers, acacia honey, caramelized figs, barley cookies and blond tobacco. The dense and generous mouthfeel has flavors of golden delicious apple, Mirabelle jam and candied citrus fruit, with a nice mentholated tension from the chalk substrata that balances the wine’s dynamism.

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