J.M Gandon

West of Reims, Branscourt has only 39 hectares of vineyards. The Vesle Valley here opens up a landscape of fields and woods, marked by morning mists and a mosaic of soils: chalk on the slopes, sandy clays mid-slope, and a few veins of sand.

It is here that Victor Gandon is now continuing a family history initiated by his grandfather, a farmer in a Champagne region still focused on polyculture, then developed by his father Jean-Marie, whose initials the estate still bears.

Victor cultivates 5.8 hectares spread across 21 plots of Pinot Noir, Meunier, and Chardonnay. Among them are old massal selections planted by his father in 1968 and 1973-74.

Rather than multiplying micro-cuvées, he seeks to create a dialogue between differences: soils, vine ages, rootstocks, exposures, like a mosaic rather than a collection of plots.

The first vinifications began in 2020. Slow pressing, natural settling, spontaneous fermentations, barrel aging on lees, minimal use of sulfur, and contained effervescence: everything is designed to give more space to the wine.

Still confidential, JM Gandon is one of those estates that are subtly shifting perspectives, towards another face of Champagne, further west, more discreet.

And definitely worth discovering.