Bare vines trained on wire in early spring on a slope above a river in the Côte des Bar

Champagne Piollot

Grower Champagne from Polisot, a village in the Côte des Bar at the southern end of Champagne. Roland Piollot took the family estate back from the big houses in 1986 and started bottling it himself. 8.5 hectares, more than half of it vines over 40 years old, worked without chemicals, and a range built on single parcels and single years rather than a house blend.

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Roland Piollot, Polisot, and the decision to stop selling grapes

Champagne Piollot sits in Polisot, a small village in the Côte des Bar, the southern end of Champagne that is closer to Chablis than it is to Reims. The family has grown vines there for five generations.

The turning point was 1986. That is when Roland Piollot took over, and he did something most growers in the Aube were not doing: he stopped selling the fruit on to the big houses and began bottling it under his own name. His daughter Jeanne is the sixth generation on the estate.

The estate runs to 8.5 hectares, and the detail that matters most is the age of it. More than half the vines are over forty years old, and when a plot does need replanting the family takes cuttings from their own best vines rather than buying in clones, so the old material carries forward instead of being replaced by something uniform.

Roland works without chemical treatments, and has done since 2009. He is not the only one in the village doing it: his partner Dominique Moreau makes Marie Courtin from a single parcel a few minutes away, and Petit Clergeot farms the same slopes. For a village of a few hundred people, Polisot has an unusual concentration of growers doing this properly.

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Bottle of Champagne Piollot Marguerite, Leucanthemum vulgare, from the Côte des Bar, with a filled glass

The wines: Cuvée de Réserve, Come des Tallants, Mepetit and the Marguerite

Piollot is planted mainly to Pinot Noir, which is what the Côte des Bar does best, with Chardonnay, Pinot Blanc, Pinot Meunier and a little Arbane, one of the near-extinct old Champagne varieties that almost nobody still grows.

Cuvée de Réserve is the house wine and the one to start with. We have it in bottle, magnum and jeroboam, which is worth knowing if you are buying for a table rather than an evening.

Come des Tallants is a Pinot Noir from a single parcel, bottled Brut Nature with no dosage at all. Mepetit is the one to go for if you want to see what Pinot Meunier can do when a grower takes it seriously instead of treating it as a blending grape, and it is also Brut Nature.

The Marguerite is the one we would push hardest. It is made with no added sulphur, and it is dedicated to all the women of the domaine. The name is the oxeye daisy on the label, printed under its botanical name Leucanthemum vulgare, and we adore the label, which is reason enough on its own to keep the empty bottle. Bottle and magnum. Cuvée Les Petites Mains completes what we have in.

Away from what we stock, the range also runs to Champs Rayes, Colas Robin, which is the rare 100 percent Pinot Blanc, and the Les Protelles rose. The line-up moves around from year to year, because most of these are single-parcel, single-vintage wines rather than a blend repeated annually.

Bottle of Piollot Come des Tallants Brut Nature grower Champagne with a poured glass

Single parcels, single years, and very little dosage

The thinking behind the range is the opposite of how Champagne usually works. A house blends across years and across villages to hit the same style every time. Piollot does the reverse: most bottles are one parcel, one variety, one year, so a vintage that was cool tastes cool and a warm one tastes warm.

Some of the vines sit on soil shallow enough that the roots push down through the clay and into the limestone underneath, which is a large part of why these wines taste of the Côte des Bar rather than of Champagne in general.

Fermentation runs on the vineyard's own yeasts, with part of the work done in oak barrels. Dosage is kept very low across the board and several cuvées, Come des Tallants and Mepetit among them, are bottled Brut Nature, which means no sugar is added at disgorgement at all. There is nowhere to hide in a wine made that way.

Sulphur is worth separating out rather than claiming across the range. The Marguerite is made with no added sulphur. The other cuvées are not sold on that basis and will carry a small amount, as is normal at bottling in Champagne.

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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 Champagne Piollot

Where is Champagne Piollot made?

In Polisot, a village in the Côte des Bar at the southern end of Champagne, in the Aube. The family has grown vines there for five generations and the estate runs to 8.5 hectares.

Who makes Champagne Piollot?

Roland Piollot, who took over in 1986 and stopped selling the family's grapes to the big Champagne houses in order to bottle under his own name. His daughter Jeanne is the sixth generation on the estate.

Is Champagne Piollot connected to Marie Courtin?

Yes. Roland Piollot and Dominique Moreau, who makes Marie Courtin, are partners, and both estates are in Polisot. They are run separately, with separate vines and separate wines, but they share a village and an approach.

What grapes does Champagne Piollot grow?

Mainly Pinot Noir, which is the Côte des Bar's strength, with Chardonnay, Pinot Blanc, Pinot Meunier and a small amount of Arbane, one of the old Champagne varieties that has almost disappeared from the region.

Is Champagne Piollot Brut Nature?

Several of the wines are, including Come des Tallants and Mepetit, which means no sugar is added at disgorgement. The rest are kept to a very low dosage. Cuvée de Réserve is bottled Brut.

Which Piollot has no added sulphur?

The Marguerite. It is made with none added at all, and it is dedicated to all the women of the domaine. The name and the label come from the oxeye daisy, printed under its botanical name Leucanthemum vulgare. The rest of the range will carry a small amount, as is normal at bottling in Champagne.

Which Champagne Piollot should I buy first?

Cuvée de Réserve. It is the house wine, it is the clearest picture of the estate, and it comes in magnum and jeroboam as well as bottle. If you already know it, Mepetit is the interesting next step, because a serious Pinot Meunier on its own is still a rare thing.