The mettle of Essentiel 2010 Collard-Picard

With Essential, Collard-Picard confirms its intense style but always with a great freshness making this a Champagne of mettle and definition.

Olivier Collard is the descendent a prestigious Champagne dynasty, the grandson of René Collard who made winemaking history at the beginning of the 20th century with his natural and organic approach and choices that were revolutionary at the time, first in regard to the vineyards and then involving his production philosophy.

The family’s winemaking roots dates back to 1889 when his ancestor George Collard became one of the first Récoltant-Manipulant in Champagne. Thus wine is in Oliver’s DNA and to celebrate his family’s history and the memory of his grandfather René Collard, the greatest interpreter of Pinot Meunier, he implicitly dedicated to him the splendid wine Coteaux Champenoise Rouge Terre de Meunier-les louves, beginning with the 2017 harvest.

Olivier’s father Daniele Collard was a producer in Villers-sous-Châtillon on the right bank of the Marne River in Valle de la Marne using the brand Collard-Chardelle. But when Olivier met Caroline Picard, the descendant of a winemaking family in Côte des Blancs, they embarked on a new adventure. Since 1996, their marital union produced the Collard-Picard wine project that has been consolidating itself harvest after harvest creating an estate that today has 16 hectares of vineyards.

The composition of their parcels is 40% Pinot Meunier in Villers-sous-Châtillon where it has the best exposition to the sun, another 40% of Chardonnay in the Grand Cru villages of Le-Mesnil-sur-Oger and Oger and 20% of Pinot Noir in the Premier Cru town of Vertus. Their approach to the vineyards is to be as respectful to nature as possible with grassing between the vine rows and earth tilling. In order to preserve the identity of the vineyards they have been subdivided into 47 small parcels which are vinified separately.

Traditional practices are respected in the winery with the wine kept in foudres (large barrels of Tronçais oak) and the use of natural corks (bouchon de liège) for secondary fermentation in the bottle while modernity is evident with the use of Coquard press to select the coeur of the cuvee while precision air conditioning systems are used to control temperatures given that they do not have an underground cellar to store the bottles while they sit on the lees.

The Collard-Picard production style in fine and precise: the aim is to obtain elegance and freshness and they prefer not to let the wine undergo malolactic fermentation and in the end the style is defined by the wine pleasant flavor. Those who have accused Olivier of adding an excessive amount of dosage have not tasted his wines of late. The dosage in his non-vintage cuvee is 9g/l but this is counterbalanced by a higher acidity from foregoing malolactic fermentation and a having a pH 3, evidence of who Olivier always strives for balance.

While the Collard-Picard style may be intense, it always has a great freshness with the profundity of fruit and creaminess from its distinct and recognizable personality.

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