Chardonnay styles are never more brilliant, nor elegant, than when winemaking meets terroir in a way that does not overpower. Avize based growers, Franck Bonville, have an artful way of doing just that. Their champagnes are both powerful and pure, a tribute to the majesty of their grand cru origins.
Olivier Bonville’s feet are firmly planted in chalk soils. He’s the fourth generation of farmers who were savvy enough to buy land in Champagne’s great Côte des Blancs amidst the phylloxera ravaged 1900s. Though locals may have thought it deranged at the time, it couldn’t have been more prudent. Today, the family’s Franck Bonville estate, located in Avize, is privileged to a rare holding of some 20 hectares across three prized grand cru terroirs - Avize, Le Mesnil-sur-Oger and Oger.
“Our land is very chalky,” says Olivier Bonville about his cherished vineyards that he manages alongside father, Gilles Bonville. “Chalk is the best way to ensure the quality of our champagne.”
As a solo performer, chalk is only a recital for burgeoning wine, but coupled with congruent winemaking and long-lees aging, it becomes a symphony. There is a lovely interplay of freshness and finesse in Bonville’s wines but also creaminess from a lees-derived texture. Slow and cool sets the tone for fermentations using thermo-regulated stainless steel for the most part. Small barrels are used sparingly on reserves and their prestige chardonnay bottling, Cuvée Les Belle Voyes, from Oger.
Bonville also likes his champagnes to have a creaminess to soften chardonnay’s steely edge, often found in grapes from this part of Champagne. High levels of acidity bequeaths the winemaker a range of tools to do almost anything he or she likes. To this end, malolactic fermentation is used judiciously, rendering some light buttery notes and a rounded mouthfeel without sacrificing precision and chalkiness.
Bonville’s first cuvée, a non-vintage blanc de blancs, represents their style well. Here they aim for consistency and blend two or three vintages to produce an apéritif style with fruitiness and finesse.
It shows that in the Côte des Blancs, you can keep chardonnay as long as you want if you have good maturity.
“Acidity is important,” says Bonville about his crisp, mineral style. “But having a good quantity of sugar is even more important. You need to take a risk with the date of harvest; when potential sugar is ripe, acidity is not a problem.”
Bonville is now planning a new winery to increase the role of the barrel, though cuvées will not intentionally exhibit oak maturity. “Imagine 30-40 percent barrel and 60 percent stainless steel,” he says. “It’s about having a good style to increase complexity of terroir.”
Franck Bonville 2008 Collection Privée
A limited release late-disgorged expression of the magnificent 2008 vintage. Bottles have spent nearly 10 years on lees in Bonville’s chalk cellars under the streets of Avize before disgorgement in March 2019.
A surprising champagne, not at all what I expected. A prominent nose of crushed pineapple, followed closely by aldehydes and a touch of port – astounding maturity for the vintage. The palate seems fresher than the nose with an impressive weightiness and luxurious texture. There’s plenty of sticky pastry notes and glacé fruits, followed by a long finish with bitter orange. Overriding all of this is its liveliness and concentration - it’s all about chalk. Superb.
Olivier Bonville on terroir...
Avize
“It’s all about chalk, sometimes at just 30-40cm deep. Ploughing allows roots to ‘eat’. The style is very round, creamy and fruity, but also mineral. The expression of terroir is more open when you taste young champagne. At just two to four years on lees, you can see it because it opens quickly. After 20 years, the freshness is still there but it’s because of the chalk’s minerality.”
Oger
“It’s quite different. Soil is light and easy to work but roots do not come into direct contact with chalk. On the palate, sometimes you get vanilla, it’s quite delicate, but not mineral or salty.”
Le Mesnil-sur-Oger
“You can see a lot of chalk here. My plots are at bottom of slope and have around 20 – 40cm of topsoil, so roots are firmly planted in chalk. Wines are typically more closed, but if you can wait seven to ten years, the wine is so powerful, complex and fresh.”
Photography supplied by Franck Bonville
