Vieilles Vignes Françaises

Vieilles Vignes Françaises is Bollinger's legendary 100% Pinot Noir bottling from ungrafted, pre-phylloxera vines in Aÿ Grand Cru - the most romantic single-vineyard cuvée in Champagne. The fruit comes from two tiny walled clos in Aÿ, Clos Saint-Jacques (0.21 ha) and Chaudes Terres (0.15 ha) - sources cite the total surface as either 31 or 36 ares. Walls retain heat and have historically shielded the vines from phylloxera. A third historical plot - Croix Rouge in Bouzy (0.16 ha) - was unwalled, eventually succumbed to phylloxera, and last contributed to the 2004 vintage; from 2005 onward, VVF is drawn solely from the two Aÿ clos.

The vines are trained by provignage / en foule: annual fruiting canes bent and buried with two or three buds left exposed, new roots form, and the vine slowly migrates and self-renews without grafting onto American rootstock. Hand-worked throughout, with a draught horse rather than a tractor - roughly 1,500 labour-hours per hectare versus around 500 for a standard Champagne hectare.

Harvest 16 September 2009. Barrel-fermented in old oak per Bollinger's vintage-cuvée signature; malolactic happens spontaneously in wood. Cork-stoppered tirage with hand riddling and hand disgorgement. Disgorged August 2019, about ten years on lees. Dosage 4 g/L. 12.5% ABV.

2,484 numbered bottles produced for the 2009. The vintage was a warm, sunny Champagne year with a long hot summer running into a healthy harvest; Pinot Noir excelled, with high sugars, soft acidity, and a generous, solar profile - typically grouped with 2008 in conversation about the great recent twin pair.