Champagne is more than just a sparkling wine; it is a collection of flavors, an embodiment of elegance, and a testament to the art of winemaking.
Crafted from different years or from a single one, blended with a single grape variety or up to seven, grown on different types of soils, with different climates and exposures, each Champagne tells the unique story of its terroir and its producer. The result is a breathtaking array of Champagnes, from the crisp minerality of Blanc de Blancs to the rich fruitiness of Blanc de Noirs.
The aging process further enhances Champagne’s complexity, creating a tapestry of flavors that evolve and mature over time. From the delicate floral notes of a young Champagne to the toasty, brioche-like aromas of an aged vintage, every sip is an invitation to embark on a sensory journey.
At Champagne Lallier, we understand that Champagne is more than a beverage; it’s an experience. Our meticulously crafted Champagnes are the perfect companion for savoring life’s simple pleasures and creating lasting memories.
For a romantic tête-à-tête or an evening with a friend, a 375ml bottle, or half bottle, can be the perfect companion. Its delicate size offers a delightful serving for two, allowing you to savor each sip and appreciate the nuanced flavors of the Champagne. Lallier’s Réflexion Brut is available in this size.
Our magnum format (1.5L) isn’t just about grandeur; it’s a vessel for elevated aging. Due to the reduced oxygen contact in a magnum, the wine matures at a slower pace, preserving freshness and developing greater depth and complexity over time. This results in a Champagne with enhanced nuances, a smoother texture, and a more lingering finish, making the Lallier magnum a truly sophisticated choice for connoisseurs seeking an unparalleled drinking experience.
Equivalent to two standard bottles, its imposing stature and elegant silhouette rival the allure of the exquisite liquid within. Réflexion Brut, Lallier Blanc de Blancs, Lallier Rosé and Ouvrage and all available to enjoy in this larger format.
We invite you to explore our entire collection and discover the perfect bottle to refine your next gathering.
Champagne Types
Non-Vintage (NV) Champagne
Non-vintage Champagne represents the majority of the Champagne wines found on the market. It is a blend of wines from multiple years: wines from the year’s harvest and reserve wines (from previous harvests). This blending process aims to create a consistent house style that remains recognizable year after year, regardless of vintage variations.
Réflexions, our signature non-vintage cuvées, represent a different philosophy. Rather than looking for consistency of taste, these pay tribute to the personality of each harvest by using a majority of these base wines, while reflecting the Champagne Lallier style, the perfect balance of four emotions: Purity, Freshness, Intensity and Depth. R.019, for example, combines 88% of wines from the 2019 harvest with 12% of reserve wines from 2018 and 2012, while R.021 combines 70% of wines from the 2021 harvest with 30% of reserve wines from 2020.
Non-vintage Champagnes, including our Réflexions cuvées, have the benefit of providing real versatility in pairing with food. R.019 for example works well as an aperitif and at the beginning of a meal with crudités, raw fish, shellfish and fresh goat’s cheese. R.021 pairs wonderfully with a zingy ceviche with yuzu, a seasonal vegetable tart, as well as shellfish such as lobster and smoked carabinero.
Rosé
Rosé Champagne can be made in two different ways. The first, rosé d’assemblage, involves blending white wine with a small amount of red wine, while the second, rosé de macération, is produced by macerating the juice of dark grapes with their skins for 36 hours.
Characterized by its fruity flavor profile, with a touch of vinosity, Rosé Champagne boasts a versatile flavor profile that complements a wide range of dishes. It pairs beautifully with everything from delicate grilled salmon to duck or roasted game, and even crispy fried chicken.
Lallier Rosé is crafted with 65% Pinot Noir, including 7% of red wines from Bouzy, with 35% Chardonnay. The addition of still red wine brings color, depth, fruit, and structure to the blend.
Blanc de Blancs
In most cases these are made from Chardonnay grapes (Blanc de Blancs means “white of whites”). There are four other white grapes that can be used, although this is quite rare, as these varieties represent less than 1% of the grape varieties planted in Champagne.
Blanc de Blancs Champagnes are known for light, crisp fruit and citrus notes, like sour apple, white peach, lemon and yuzu, as well as floral notes such as white flowers, with good acidity and minerality from the Champagne region’s predominately limestone, chalky soils. They pair well with delicate sashimi, roasted asparagus, sweet potato tataki, grilled white meats like chicken or pork, and other flavorful dishes that complement their elegant character. They also pair beautifully with fresh cheeses such as ricotta and fresh goat’s cheese.
Lallier Blanc de Blancs is 100% Chardonnay, blended from terroirs of the Côte des Blancs and Aÿ, and aged a minimum of three years. Light yellow in color, it offers floral and pastry notes, with a tense, mineral finish.
Blanc de Noirs
Blanc de Noirs, meaning “white of blacks,” is a Champagne style crafted primarily from black Pinot Noir and/or Meunier grapes. Despite using dark-skinned grapes, the Champagne pours white thanks to the soft and meticulous pressing of whole bunches. This specific Champagne pressing method allows for the extraction of the white pulp from the grape without coloring the juices.
This unique production process creates a sparkling wine bursting with vibrant fruitiness, red and yellow fruit in particular, as well as vinosity and structure. Its boldness makes it an excellent match with more generous and structured types of foods such as pasta with grilled pork or chicken, fleshy fish, sole turbot, or lightly cooked white or red meats.
Champagne Lallier’s Blanc de Noirs is a pure Pinot Noir expression, mostly crafted from grapes grown in two prestigious Grand Crus terroirs in Aÿ and Verzenay. Its intense golden hue reveals candied ripe fruit aromas, complemented by notes of mandarin, pastry, and a subtle hint of spice. This exceptional Champagne undergoes a minimum of five years of aging to develop its unique character.
Vintage
Vintage Champagnes are made from grapes from a single harvest, with this vintage date displayed on the bottle’s label. These Champagnes are only produced in certain years, when the Chef de Caves or grower decides to create a cuvée that will showcase the unique personality of the chosen year. Vintage Champagnes therefore often command higher prices, and many are considered collectible, suitable for cellaring for years or even decades. French law mandates a minimum aging period of three years in the bottle before release, ensuring a certain level of maturity and complexity.
Champagne Lallier’s Millésimés collection is a handcrafted ode to these exceptional years for the Maison. There have been 13 so far with the currently available expression, Millésimé 2014. Aged for a minimum of 6 years in our cellars, this cuvée shows intense golden reflections, a great length through its exceptional depth and aromatic persistence, with notes of candied fruits, chestnut honey and spices. It offers a beautiful silky texture, paired with a delicate effervescence. As a result, it complements cave-aged cheeses like old Comté, roasted chicken or turkey, and delicate fish like sea bass or sole, but also richer dishes like lobster scampi, pan-seared diver scallops, and stewed white meats with seasonal vegetables.
Prestige Cuvée Champagne
At the pinnacle of Champagne’s artistry are Prestige Cuvées, the result of the selection of the finest grapes from the finest terroirs, coupled with painstaking winemaking. These wines offer exceptional quality, finesse, and a multi-layered depth of flavors that evolve and mature over time. Limited in production and exclusive in nature, these are highly sought after.
To create our Prestige Cuvée Ouvrage, Lallier’s Cellar Master selects the two most beautiful and successful plots of the year. Between 30% and 50% of these wines are vinified in oak barrels. These are blended, followed by longer aging under cork that brings beautiful complexity and maturity, while preserving freshness and contributing to a delicate effervescence.
Ouvrage is elegant and complex, with buttery and brioche aromas, joined by dried apricot and a touch of minerality. This leads to a sophisticated, fresh and long palate, with great fineness and depth, culminating in a long finish that reveals subtle hazelnut notes. It pairs beautifully with caviar, lightly pan-seared scallops, white meats, langoustines, and lobster risotto with a delicate herb butter demi-glace.
Parcellaire Wines
We also create parcellaire Champagnes, with fruit sourced from a single plot, such as Loridon and Les Sous. To take this concept even further, these wines are fermented using home-grown yeasts from the plots themselves.
Each sip is an invitation to discover the nuances of each vineyard plot, making the experience more rewarding for the discerning Champagne enthusiast.
Loridon is a plot selection from the Lallier vineyard on the Aÿ terroir usually known for its Pinot Noir. This plot is planted in Chardonnay and located at the top of the hillsides, with a south-facing exposure, on very chalky soil This particular location brings both power and depth, but also freshness, to the wines
The result is a Champagne of remarkable purity and minerality, with delicate notes of almond, candied citrus and summer honey. Loridon is a true embodiment of the parcellaire philosophy, offering a unique and unforgettable taste of Champagne’s rich terroir.
Les Sous is similarly hand-crafted from a singular Grand Cru Pinot Noir plot in Aÿ, grown at altitude at the top of south-east facing hillsides in chalky soil, providing not only power and depth, but freshness too. Les Sous is aged for a minimum of five years to create a golden Champagne with impressive vinosity and notes of raisin, almond, fresh bread and viennoiserie, a testament to its exceptional terroir.
Champagne Styles
Historically, Champagne terminology can be a bit perplexing. Back in the 1800s, most Champagnes were crafted in a sweeter style, and the terms we use today still carry echoes of that tradition.
To clarify this, let’s look at one particularly crucial aspect of Champagne production called dosage, meaning the addition of a liqueur, called liqueur d’expédition or liqueur de dosage, made with wine and a specific amount of sugar to balance the wine’s natural acidity and to finalize its flavor profile. This is measured in grams per liter. To give you a practical reference, a tablespoon in cooking equates to roughly 14 grams (half an ounce).
Extra Brut and Brut Champagne
The meaning of Extra Brut is a Champagne with very little residual sugar, six grams or less per liter. In comparison, Brut Champagne is a little bit sweeter, with up to 12 grams of sugar per liter, and it stands as the most frequently sold iteration of Champagne.
At Champagne Lallier, dosage is more than a mere step in the winemaking process; it’s a carefully orchestrated act of balance and refinement. We approach dosage with a profound respect for the inherent character of each cuvée .
Our approach begins with ensuring the grapes’ highest level of maturity as possible, and meticulous post-disgorgement tasting. This deep understanding guides our decision-making, allowing us to determine the precise dosage that will enhance the wine’s inherent qualities without masking its unique character.
For instance, in Lallier Blanc de Blancs, the 8 g/l dosage perfectly balances the wine, highlighting its intensity and purity.
In every case, our goal is to create a Champagne that sings with harmony and balance. We believe that this meticulous approach to dosage is a testament to our unwavering commitment to the expression of our terroir, the precision of our craftsmanship and our passion for creating Champagnes that are both exquisite and memorable.
How Champagne is Classified
It’s worth noting that Champagne is a classified beverage, meaning the villages where the grapes are grown were historically evaluated and ranked based on various factors including soil quality, exposure to sunlight, and overall terroir.
The Champagne region is divided into four distinct growing districts, or sub regions. These sub regions encompass multiple villages or towns where the vineyards flourish, and each boasts unique weather and sunlight patterns, diverse soil types and varying slopes. These factors all contribute to the distinct character of the grapes grown in each.
The four sub regions are: Côte des Bar, Côte des Blancs, Montagne de Reims, and Vallée de la Marne. Together these consist of 319 villages, each known as a “cru”. These crus are not individual vineyards, but rather the villages themselves, each contributing to the unique character of Champagne wines.
Nearly 280,000 vineyards within these crus are meticulously tended by 16,000 dedicated grape growers, cultivating the grapes that make Champagne renowned worldwide.
The crus were historically divided into three tiers according to the original classification system, initiated in the 1800s, which assessed factors such as soil quality, grape variety, and historical significance of each region. At the pinnacle is the Grand Cru, of which there are only 17. Next is the Premier Cru, comprising 43 crus, followed by the Cru, which encompasses the remaining vineyards.
Champagne Lallier is proud to call Aÿ and Oger, two Grand Cru villages renowned for producing exceptional grapes, home to some of our finest vineyards, as well as our aging cellars and production facilities. We also cultivate grapes in the Grand Crus of Avize, Verzy and Verzenay, the Premier Crus of Bergères-lès-Vertus, Cuis and Grauves, and Fontette and Gyé-sur-Seine.
Alongside our own vineyards we work with around 150 growers from different Champagne regions . This extensive network allows us to carefully select the finest grapes from a multitude of exceptional terroirs, ensuring that each cuvée of Champagne Lallier is a true reflection of the region’s diversity and richness. While the exact number of Grand Cru and Premier Cru vineyards we work with may vary depending on the vintage and specific blend, our dedication to sourcing the most exceptional grapes remains unwavering.
Discover the spectacular variety of Champagne Lallier’s collection of Champagnes here