Grower Champagne from Verzy in the Montagne de Reims, poured into two glasses

Mouzon Leroux Champagne | Grower Champagne from Verzy

Grower Champagne from the Grand Cru village of Verzy, in the Montagne de Reims. The Mouzon family has made wine here since 1776 and Sébastien Mouzon runs the estate now, across 8.5 hectares split into 65 blocks, all of them inside the village. Trees, shrubs and aromatic plants grow among the vines, animals graze the rows in winter, and the wines are bottled with very little sulphur.

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A family at Verzy since 1776, and 65 blocks inside one Grand Cru

Mouzon Leroux sit in Verzy, a Grand Cru village on the Montagne de Reims, and the family has been making Champagne there since 1776, handed from father to son. Sébastien Mouzon runs it now, with his parents Pascale and Philippe.

The estate is 8.5 hectares, which is small, but the detail that matters is that it is split into 65 separate blocks, every one of them inside Verzy. Nothing is bought in and nothing comes from outside the village. The soils are calcareous clay and calcareous loam sitting over flint, on Lower Campanian chalk.

The exposure is north eastern, which is unusual for a Grand Cru and would normally be seen as a disadvantage. Here it keeps the sites cool and slow to ripen, and in a warming Champagne that has quietly become an asset. The plantings run 60 percent Pinot Noir, 35 percent Chardonnay and a final 5 percent of Arbane, Pinot Gris, Pinot Blanc, Pinot Meunier and Petit Meslier, the old varieties most of the region stopped bothering with.

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Bottles of Mouzon Leroux L'Ascendant solera and L'Atavique Tradition side by side

L'Atavique and L'Ascendant: the wines of Mouzon Leroux

L'Atavique is the house wine and the one to start with. It is 100 percent Verzy, roughly 70 percent Pinot Noir to 30 percent Chardonnay, built on one harvest with reserve wine from the two before it. Part ferments in 228 litre oak and part in steel, malolactic is taken to completion, and it rests more than three years on lees before being disgorged at 1 gram of sugar, so Extra Brut.

L'Ascendant is the more unusual bottle. It is a true solera, running since 2014 and built entirely out of L'Atavique. Each year about half is drawn off and replaced, so a current bottle is around half the most recent vintage and half a blend reaching back through every year to 2014. It is 60 percent Pinot Noir to 40 percent Chardonnay, with the reserve fraction held in used French oak, and it is disgorged at zero dosage.

The wider range runs to L'Incandescent, L'Ineffable, L'Angélique, Les Fervins, L'Opiniâtre and L'Exaltant. One naming note if you are comparing listings: the estate label reads L'Atavique Tradition, Verzy Grand Cru, while plenty of merchants shorten it to just L'Atavique. Trade paperwork sometimes calls it a Brut Réserve, which is not a name the estate uses.

A bottle of Mouzon Leroux L'Atavique Grand Cru de Verzy held at a tasting table with poured glasses

Trees in the vines, animals in winter, and almost nothing in the cellar

The estate moved away from conventional treatments in 1997 and to its current method in 2008. Since 2011 it has run an agroforestry programme, planting more than 1,500 trees and shrubs among the blocks along with more than 800 aromatic plants, thyme, oregano, savory and mint. In winter chickens and sheep graze the rows. Soil is worked with inter-vine hoes, claws and ploughs, and young vines are ploughed by horse so the ground is not compacted. Harvest is by hand and the fruit is sorted grape by grape.

In the cellar the wines ferment on their own yeast, and malolactic is deliberately taken to completion, which is what lets them keep the sulphur so low. Ageing runs from 7 up to 24 months on full lees in barrel, then another three to five years in bottle. The stated average across the range is 15 milligrams per litre of total sulphur, with under 5 free, which is a very long way below what a Champagne house would normally use.

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A selection of grower Champagne bottles including Fleury, Petit Clergeot, Clément Perseval, Pierre Deville, Mouzon Leroux, Rémi Georgeton, Domaine Nowack and Antoine Chevalier

NATURAL WINES FROM CHAMPAGNE

Champagne is the coldest of the classic French wine regions, about 150 kilometres east of Paris, on chalk deep enough that the cellars are cut straight into it. The grapes are Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Meunier, with a handful of growers keeping Arbane, Petit Meslier, Pinot Blanc and Pinot Gris alive. What matters for natural wine is the split between the big houses, who buy most of their fruit, and the grower Champagnes who farm their own and bottle it themselves. The growers are where the low dosage and low sulphur bottles come from, and where a single village actually tastes like itself. Producers include Mouzon Leroux Champagne, Champagne Piollot and Moussé Fils.

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FAQ about Mouzon Leroux Champagne

Where is Mouzon Leroux Champagne made?

In Verzy, a Grand Cru village on the Montagne de Reims in Champagne. The estate farms 8.5 hectares split across 65 blocks, all of them inside the village, on calcareous clay and loam over flint. The family has made wine there since 1776.

What is the difference between L'Atavique and L'Ascendant?

L'Atavique is the house cuvée, built on a single harvest with reserve wine from the two years before, disgorged Extra Brut at 1 gram. L'Ascendant is a solera running since 2014, where roughly half is drawn off and replaced each year, so a bottle contains a fraction of every vintage back to the start. It is disgorged at zero dosage.

Is Mouzon Leroux Grand Cru?

Yes. Every wine is 100 percent Verzy, which is a Grand Cru village, so the whole range carries Grand Cru status. The estate owns nothing outside the village and buys in no fruit.

How much sulphur is in Mouzon Leroux Champagne?

Very little. The estate states an average of around 15 milligrams per litre of total sulphur across the range, with under 5 milligrams free. For comparison, a conventional Champagne can carry ten times that. Taking malolactic fermentation to completion is what makes the low level possible.

What grapes does Mouzon Leroux grow?

The estate is planted to 60 percent Pinot Noir and 35 percent Chardonnay, with a final 5 percent given over to Arbane, Pinot Gris, Pinot Blanc, Pinot Meunier and Petit Meslier. L'Atavique and L'Ascendant are both Pinot Noir and Chardonnay blends.

Which Mouzon Leroux should I buy first?

L'Atavique. It is the house wine, it is the base the whole range is built from, and it shows the cool north eastern side of Verzy clearly. If you already know it, L'Ascendant is the one that shows what the solera does to that same wine.