The Best Champagne On Earth

How Bollinger makes its ultra-rare, ultra-delicious Vieilles Vignes Françaises

- Christopher Ross

THE VINEYARD

In all of Champagne, only a few tiny parcels of land were mysteriously untouched by a phylloxera blight that ravaged European winemakers in 1863, ruining more than 6 million acres of vineyards. Most vintners had to graft American rootstock on their vines. Bollinger, headquartered in Aÿ, is one of the only producers spared, and it still makes wine using techniques that date to the 19th century.

THE CULTIVATION

Bollinger’s planting method is called en foule, meaning “in a crowd.” In November, almost a year before the next harvest, a trained 10-person team guides the stems of existing vines back into the soil, where they’ll take root and grow. The result is a messy, highly dense plot that can be tended only by hand and requires intense labor—1,500 hours a year per acre, compared with 400 hours for a normal vineyard.

THE HARVEST