Benoit Lahaye, Violaine, 2020

Benoît and Valérie Lahaye make quite exceptional champagnes from superb terroirs, including four single-vineyard champagnes. They have just 4.8ha of vines in Bouzy and Ambonnay that they work together with their two sons, and an incredibly muscular horse called Tamise used for ploughing to avoid compaction of the soils. Since changing to biodynamic viticulture in the late 2000s the most notable benefit has been that the grapes attain higher levels of ripeness whilst retaining the same level of acidity. As the grapes regularly give 11% alcohol for the first fermentation and there is a natural density to the juice, most of their champagnes are now disgorged without dosage and since 2008 they have carried out the malolactic fermentations. He never uses sulphur at disgorging, and after several experiments, now bottles one cuvée Violaine with no sulphur used at any stage. Total sulphur levels throughout the range average a very low 15mg/l.