NV Champagne Guillaume Sergent Les Pres Dieu Brut 750 ml

A Micro-Production Triumph!

No one merits the term “grower-producer” more than Guillaume Sergent, who owns just under four acres in Champagne, and tends every last plant himself—it allows him to “understand his vines perfectly.” The 881 bottles of his NV Champagne Les Prés Dieu Brut that exist are the product of his painstaking work. Composed solely of Chardonnay grown in two Premier Cru vineyards on the Montagne de Reims—the “Les Vignes Dieu” Cru on the hill of Coulommes-la-Montagne and the “Les Prés Dieu” Cru in the village of Vrigny. The bright, vibrant, high-acid Les Prés Dieu gains character and creaminess from aging in neutral French oak. Antonio Galloni of Vinous gave Les Prés Dieu 92 points, calling it “incredibly delicious” and an “unusually powerful, rich expression of Chardonnay.” We have managed to secure a significant portion of Guillaume’s production, which still amounts to only 360 bottles. Shipping included on 3.

The Sergent family’s long history of Champagne winegrowing began in 1842, when Remy-Nicolas Sergent married Éléonore Bailly, and thus into a winemaking clan. The Sergent family grew grapes for nearly a century before Lucien Sergent installed himself and his family in the village of Vrigny in 1931, and made the first wine under the Sergent name. Finally, in 2007, Guillaume Sergent took over the Champagne Roger Sergent label, which his father had started five decades earlier.

But Guillaume had other ambitions—or rather, additional ambitions. He continued the business and followed the stylistic traditions of his father, and also set out to do something different, dedicating two vineyards—just four acres—to his project: Les Prés, and east-facing parcel located in the Premier Cru village of Vrigny, and Les Vignes Dieu, a south-facing terroir on the hill of Coulommes-la-Montagne, another Premier Cru village. Les Prés is rich in fossilized shells, and both vineyards contain Bartonian limestone and have a base of fine sand.

Guillaume’s Les Prés Dieu eschews the local stalwart Pinot Meunier grape for pure Chardonnay, which thrives on his two plots. Guillaume vinifies the lean and racy Les Prés Dieu solely in used Francois Frères barrels, which lends the wine creaminess and complexity. A tiny dosage of 3 grams per liter rounds out the energetic wine, and maximum attention is paid to maintaining the flavors developed in the vineyard and in the cellar: Les Prés is bottled unfined, unfiltered, and Guillaume performs the riddling himself, by hand.