Read more: The Grower Champagne Report 2024

One can trace this genetic mutation of Pinot Noir back to the 16th century, when it was known in Champagne as Morillon Taconné. In its heyday in the 1950s, over half of Champagne’s vineyards grew Meunier. Then started a period of decline that lasted until the 1980s, the grape’s fortunes only turning back around again when the mean climate forced the Vallée de la Marne growers to recognise its later-budding and earlier-ripening virtues once again.

However, it was only in the new millennium that the rise of varietal Meunier wines began, with pioneering cuvées including La Closerie’s Les Béguines, Tarlant’s La Vigne d’Or and Egly-Ouriet’s Les Vignes de Vrigny. Today, 100% Meunier is no rarity, and some producers even make several different purely varietal cuvées from it. Alexandre Salmon in Chaumuzy, for example, crafts as many as eight different Meuniers, including Coteaux Champenois and ratafia (the region’s lesser-know, traditional grape-based liqueur).

Champagne’s new, more sustainable and attentive approach to viticulture is helping Meunier to thrive. This challenging variety needs more work in the vineyards; it is sensitive to both sun and humidity. Its skin is particularly delicate, to the degree that several producers such as Famille Moussé and Cazé-Thibault have switched to small 15kg picking crates to avoid crushing the crop. For the best results, yields must be restricted. Yet, many growers do not want to limit the yields too much, keen to retain the natural freshness the variety can bring to a wine. Many growers seek to add to its complexity through the use of oak, but here too caution is needed as Meunier is particularly prone to oxidation.

 

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It’s clear to see that a lot of effort and craftmanship goes into making great Meunier. But its capacity for longevity has already been well proven through the work of Meunier masters of the past, René Collard and José Michel. As such, I believe that Meunier’s potential has not yet been fully realised.

And yet, today we can enjoy a superlative range of Meuniers. In fact, it is intriguing how Meunier may trick you in blind tastings with its rich variety of aromatics and characteristics. Often, with its fruity roundness and notes of lush apple, confected fruit, pastry, smoke and spicy nuances, it may resemble Pinot Noir. But at times its vivacious freshness and floral or yellow-fruited profile may make you mistake it for Chardonnay.

Tasting for the Grower Champagne Report assured me of the rapid development of Meunier within the region. As the region moves away from overly vinous versions of Champagne and the hefty use of oak, I am loving a new wave of wines with freshness and finesse. As Meunier’s fruitiness is charming yet delicate, it deserves to be given the lead role within this movement.

There is a lot to discover in the Marne Valley, with its various vineyard aspects and complex puzzle of soils. Cazé-Thibaut makes Meuniers of great finesse in Châtillon-sur-Marne, whereas the style of Nowack in the neighbouring Vandières village is one of depth and soulfulness. Guiborat from Cramant plays around with Meunier from Mardeuil, and fans of their precise style will love their cuvée Prohibition. Pouillon too ventures away from his local Pinot Noir terroir for the creation of Meunier cuvée Les Châtaigniers. Here is a boldly expressive Meunier with a character of its own.

Meunier also thrives in the Petite Montagne de Reims and Massif de Saint-Thierry to the southwest and northwest of Reims. Egly-Ouriet makes good use of grapes from Petite Montagne in its Vieilles Vignes de Vrigny, a wine that demonstrates great finesse and vivacity. In Massif de Saint-Thierry’s Merfy, Chartogne-Taillet crafts one of Champagne’s most individualistic Meuniers from ungrafted vines: in its Les Barres cuvée, Alex Chartogne coaxes out the variety’s wild nature, rather than trying to tame it.

But individual Meunier stars shine elsewhere too: JM Sélèque makes a rare and exotically scented maceration-method rosé from Pierry’s Les Charmiers plot. On the Montagne de Reims, Huré Frères keeps on impressing with its skillfully crafted single-vineyard Champagnes from La Grosse Pierre in Ludes. And while Pinot Noir and Chardonnay are naturally the preference on premium sites, last time I checked there were 40 hectares of Meunier grown on Grand Cru terroirs. One of the handful of Grand Cru Meunier makers, Adrien Renoir, grows 30 ares (one are = 0.3 hectares) in a massal-selection plot planted by his grandfather. Do try his Verzy curiosity included in the list that follows below.