Read more: The Grower Champagne Report 2024

Nine of my top ten wines in the Grower Champagne Report 2024 were Chardonnays and eight of them single-vineyard Champagnes (or, in one case, a dual-vineyard offering). Chardonnay is known to express its terroir, thus to no surprise many growers choose to craft their top bottlings from single-site Chardonnay. In addition to being able to beautifully reflect its origin, Chardonnay offers unparalleled opportunities for winemaking wizardry. The endless opportunities for using oak and toying with malolactic fermentation may add to its complexities. Thus, single-vineyard Champagnes, which see no benefit from blending of different origins, can instead gain complexity from the combinations of various winemaking ways.

My top-performing blanc de blancs grower Champagne, Vilmart & Cie Blanc de Blancs Les Blanches Voies 2013, is certainly an embodiment of the above. Vilmart & Cie (pictured in the lead image) owns a vast piece of vineyard, five hectares on Rilly-la-Montagne’s chalky Les Blanches Voies that was pioneered in the 1960s. On top of terroir and a superlative 2013 harvest year, owner and chef de cave Laurent Champs takes a perfectionist’s approach to the use of oak and the investment in prolonged ageing, resulting in something that’s ultimately elegant and pure in the bottle. Vilmart & Cie are not the only ones infatuated by the Chardonnay of Les Blanches Voies, though; Huré Frères also makes a remarkably fine Chardonnay from here. Its 4 Éléments Chardonnay 2018 sees the seamless interplay of concentrated grapes from the sunny and chalky site with François and Pierre Huré’s meticulous craftsmanship in the vineyard and cellar. It’s a blanc de blancs with refined Burgundian vibes.

The sandstone soils of Montagne de Reims’ Massif de Saint-Thierry also have a lot to give on the Chardonnay front, exemplified by Chartogne-Taillet’s Heurtebise Champagne from the superlative harvest year of 2019. The south-facing sandstone terroir of the grower’s Les Heurtes Bises plot – plus the intuitive and perceptive winemaking of Alexandre Chartogne – has led to rare complexity and tension in this gem. In fact, this year’s Grower Champagne Report showcases many great 2019s and among them is Cédric Bouchard’s Roses de Jeanne HL/R19 NV. True to Bouchard’s philosophy of single-vineyard, single-variety and single-vintage wines, this Chardonnay is truly scarce: La Haute-Lemblé in Côte des Bar’s Celles-sur-Ource is only 0.11ha in size. The wine demonstrates crystalline fruit on an energetic, silky and airy palate, making for a delightful Champagne with an effortlessness to it. I never cease to be amazed by the precision of Bouchard’s wines made in minuscule volumes, without use of oak and designed to charm at lower pressure.

Another brilliant Chardonnay maker, Ulysse Collin, makes several outstanding blanc de blancs in Coteaux du Petit Morin. In the warm 2018 harvest, the particularly cool terroir for Les Pierrières NV, from a 1.2-hectare monopole plot in Vert-Toulon, excelled in creating a blanc de blancs of finesse and precision. I love how the oak is downplayed in order to show respect to the terroir and the silky delicacy of the wine.

Then moving on to the heartland of majestic Chardonnay in Champagne, the chalky soils of the Côte des Blancs, we have Dhondt-Grellet’s monumental Le Bateau Grand Cru Blanc de Blancs 2018. Coming from a sun-kissed plot and in a sun-kissed year, this 2018 is a monster of a Champagne in all its grandeur and concentration. The oak gets almost completely absorbed by lush fruit and a fine tension that catches up on the back palate. Perhaps a taste of what climate change may grant Champagne in the future.