CHAMPAGNE FLEURY
We can finally reveal one of the Champagne’s shipped to the Champagne Grower Club and it was a fan favorite! The bottles were blinded before our Zoom club meeting, so we’ve been unable to talk about them.
It’s been difficult keeping the secret because this Champagne makes you want to sing from the mountain tops. After our visit there last November, it is now one of Faun’s favorites and she, along with many others, is convinced that the biodynamic way in which it was grown and processed negates the sour tummy and headaches that some people experience with Champagne. What could be better than Champagne you can drink with impunity!?
But hands down the reason you buy this Champagne is the artistry with which it is made, delivering results that are stunning! You have my word that if you don’t know this wine now, you will, and you will love it!
The star characteristics of Champagne Fleury, to my mind, began to take shape around 1970, nearly a full century after the founding great-grandfather, Émile Fleury, made a name grafting pinot noir plants that had just been decimated by the phylloxera crisis.
In 1970, Robert Fleury, son of Émile, was preparing to hand over the domaine to his only son, young Jean-Pierre. But he had loftier ambitions; his head was in the stars, with no interest in being a winemaker. For as long as he could remember, he had dreamed of becoming an astronomer.
But traditions are strong in 70s’ rural France, and Jean-Pierre reluctantly comes back to Courteron to begin a life he had not chosen. Then, things get worse. After some time spent in the vineyards, he became disgusted by industrial farming and all the products that are put into the vine. One of his more vivid memories of disgust: “I remember Parathion” it would stink like a dead rat!” Parathion is an organophosphorus pesticide, a nerve agent banned in France since 2002. In 2021 the EPA announced its decision, after years of studies showing harm to human health, to ban it from food use. Efforts to actually ban it have been complicated by US politics.
Back to the Fleury family, the conflict that ensued between father and son is the stuff movies are made of, but for purposes of this short story, suffice it to say, since Jean-Pierre had sacrificed his life’s dream to obey his aging father, he eventually manages to convince Robert to start an organic conversion.
By the time the 80’s rolled around and Jean-Pierre is now fully in charge, he had stumbled across Rudolf Steiner’s work and suddenly, everything clicks: “it connects energies from the Earth and from the Cosmos, so that made sense with my childhood dream of becoming an astronomer.” Vins Rare has delved into Biodynamics and Rudolf Steiner and we encourage to read more when convenient.
By 1989, slowly and steadily Champagne Fleury had started converting, yet again, from organic to biodynamic. The whole domaine eventually acquired biodynamic certification in 1992. It was the first domaine in Champagne to receive biodynamic certification.
Six children later, Jean-Pierre has turned Champagne Fleury over to his children who choose to work the vineyards (operative word, choose). The three children now involved will tell you that biodynamic farming is mankind’s humble practice to seek equilibrium and harmony in the ecosystem with which we all live and work. Observation, questioning and adaptation are at the core and as with all biodynamic farms, there’s a particular attention given to the quality of their soils and plants. Ultimately, this harmony needs to be expressed in the wine.
Towards this effort, the Fleury family has built what feels like a “temple” called the Cellar of Time. It’s a wine chapel which you walk into and immediately have the warm-fuzzies. In fact, it’s designed for the wines to feel good as they age. It is packed with symbols from the biodynamic cosmogony: waves made of cork represent the shape of wind, or water, or the Jurassic soil layers. Pillars of travertine, a stone said to be one of the original stones of Earth’s creation, line what feels like the nave. And a semi-precious stone and zodiac calendar hang on the wall, while a constellation and Solar movements fresco hang above the bar. In the back, a golden spiral gives visual reference to a twelfth century mathematician, Leonardo Fibonacci, and a numeral sequence for which he posthumously became famous; science geeks should google this! Mathematicians have since coined a cousin of this sequence the “golden ratio” as it manages to capture various types of plant and animal growth: spirals of sunflower heads, in pine cones, in the arrangement of leaf buds on a stem, some succulents, as well as the spiral in sea or snail shells and in animal horns! You may recall our discussion about biodynamic certification where a farmer must use a cow horn to begin the soil regenerative process, known as Preparation 500.
Fleury is located in CĂ´te des Bars, the southernmost region of Champagne, closer to Burgundy than Reims. The terroir is clay and Kimmeridgian, on soft hills that were naturally carved by ancient rivers. The Fleury family cultivates 15 hectares, with a whooping 85% of their vineyards dedicated to Pinot Noir. Chardonnay represents an additional 10%, and the remaining 5% are a mix of pinot blanc, pinot gris that was replanted in 2010, and last but not last, pinot meunier. The vine is replanted each year to maintain quality, but some plants are actually 55 years old, and all of them, including the oldest ones, are organic.
