Chemin de Reims

Chemin de Reims is one of the single-parcel bottlings Chartogne-Taillet makes at Merfy, in the Massif de Saint-Thierry north-west of Reims. Alexandre Chartogne, who worked under Anselme Selosse before returning in 2006 and taking full control the following year, turned the domaine toward exactly this: separate wines from separate plots rather than one house blend. Merfy's soils are a patchwork of chalk, clay, sandstone, limestone and sand, unlike the more uniform chalk of the Côte des Blancs, and the estate ploughs by horse on about half its surface.

The plot runs to 1.24 hectares, of which Chartogne-Taillet farms 1.11, facing south to south-east and planted in 1980, 1995 and 2011. Its soil is orangey-red Thanetian limestone sand, rich in iron, about sixty centimetres of it over Campanian chalk, worked under a cover of natural grasses. It is not purely Chardonnay either: the producer gives the parcel as 85% Chardonnay and 15% Arbanne, one of Champagne's nearly vanished varieties, planted here in 2011 - though the wine itself is declared 100% Chardonnay. Since 2012 it has been raised in casks of 350 to 600 litres, chosen for being reductive and protective, with regular topping up, and bottled without filtration.

This 2021 was drawn into bottle in July 2022 and disgorged in November 2025, about forty months on its lees, finished at 3.55 g/L and 12.5%. It is a grower's wine in the formal sense, a récoltant-manipulant bottling, and a small one: 2,250 bottles.