Ulysse Collin

The Collin family has been growing vines in Congy since 1812. Georges Collin became the village's first récoltant-manipulant in 1930. His son René expanded the estate to eighteen hectares after the war. Then, in 1987, Olivier's father stopped making wine independently and rented the vineyards and cellar to a major Champagne house. For a generation, the family's grapes disappeared into someone else's blend.

Olivier Collin grew up watching this happen. He spent eight years studying law (at Nancy, then Bordeaux for viticulture), and was deeply influenced by the Burgundian approach to site-specific winemaking. The formative step was his apprenticeship under Anselme Selosse at Domaine Jacques Selosse (2001-2003). That Selosse connection is the single most important key to understanding what Ulysse Collin is. In 2003 Olivier reclaimed 4.5 hectares of family vineyards that had been leased for a generation, and set about doing everything differently.

First vintage was 2004, from Les Pierrières - a Chardonnay parcel on shallow topsoil over soft Campanian chalk studded with silex. The soils here, in the Coteaux du Petit Morin south of the Côte des Blancs (a distinct sub-region that Olivier is careful not to conflate with the nearby Côte de Sézanne), are unlike anything elsewhere in Champagne. That is both the challenge and the point.

The domaine produces six wines. Each is a single-parcel, single-variety, single-vintage expression - no blending across sites, no assemblage of years, no reserve wines. Fermentation in used Burgundy barrels (228-litre pièces), malolactic completed, extended lees aging (thirty-six to seventy-plus months before disgorgement, and lengthening with each release), near-zero dosage (typically around 1.7-2.4 g/L). Organic in practice - cover crops, ploughing, no herbicides - though formal certification has been attempted and abandoned after crop loss.

The cuvées:

• Les Pierrières - Blanc de Blancs (Chardonnay), the reference parcel. First vintage 2004.
• Les Roises - Blanc de Blancs from a separate lieu-dit, typically broader. First vintage 2008.
• Les Enfers - Blanc de Blancs, another distinct parcel. First vintage 2010.
• Les Maillons - Blanc de Noirs (Pinot Noir), the domaine's signature red-grape bottling. First vintage 2006.
• Rosé Les Maillons - First vintage 2011.
• Jardin d'Ulysse - First vintage 2015.

Olivier also produces still wines under the Coteaux Champenois appellation - a Burgundian gesture from a man whose thinking is Burgundian in almost every respect.

Ulysse Collin is now among the most allocated grower Champagnes in the world. Availability is measured in individual bottles rather than cases. The domaine sits in the same ultra-cult tier as Selosse, Egly-Ouriet, and Cédric Bouchard's Roses de Jeanne - but from a corner of Champagne that, before Olivier, almost nobody thought to take seriously.