Stephane Regnault, Chromatique NV 1.5L

100% Chardonnay

Champagne, France

The ‘Chromatique’ cuvée is taken from bits and pieces of all of the sites with which Regnault works, to give a ‘chromatic’ representation of the terroir—one that, as in the musical term, ‘uses all the notes.’ Included are vines from Le Mesnil, toward the bottoms of very chalky slopes, and some from Oger, where the soils are richer. Base vintage 2020. Dosage 2g/L. Disgorged 07/23

Regnault’s four hectares of Chardonnay are divided between a few highly-celebrated chalky terroirs in Le Mesnil, as well as the Grand Cru village Oger. Regnault takes a modern approach to the new estate wines at this domaine, identifying three specific lieu-dits to bottle separately: Chemin de Flavigny in Oger, Moulin on the border between Oger and Le Mesnil, and Hautes-Mottes in Le Mesnil. Since Stéphane returned home in 2007, the property was converted to organic farming, having been certified organic in 2020. Regnault now uses a number of biodynamic preparations as well: he mentions he’s interested in practices that allow for ‘respect of the soil and living things—an ecosystem is a whole of which the vine is only a part!’

Each of Regnault’s three single-parcel cuvées are complex representations of the lieu-dits, multi-vintage wines on which he builds each year, as in a solera. For instance, his ‘Lydien No. 14’ was one of his first vintages, the 2014. The following cuvée is ‘Lydien No. 29,’ a blend of juice from ’14 + ’15 vintages, and so on. (Stéphane is also a jazz saxophone musician, hence the beautiful labels: visual representations of different modes in improvisational jazz. Each evokes the tone and structure of each wine.) Each drop of new wines, we are more and more impressed with how quickly (just over five or six vintages) Regnault is establishing himself as a virtuoso of his terroir.