It's taken some time but some almost four decades later, the Selosse Champagne house is finally getting its dues.

Today, the excitement around Grower Champagnes - those who handle every aspect of a Champagne's making from growing the fruit to working the cellars and producing Champagnes under their own names - is of course palpable, and numerous individual names are finally getting the credit they deserve.

A Very Bubbly Dilemma

It wasn't just the 1950's when the Champagne landscape was far different from what it is today - most growers had no means to brand themselves, nor the capital or skill to engage in what was seen as a major risk to having to grow their fruit and make their own Champagnes, carving out a distinct identity for themselves. It was far easier to simply hand their fruit off to larger champagne houses who would pay them for the fruit produced. That was unfortunately not a formula for producing the greatest of Champagnes. Under that system, fruit was priced solely as a commodity, with its geographical origin the sole determinant of its price - the more fruit produced, the more a grower was paid. This often resulted in high yields, mechanised agriculture and the use of artificial chemicals to produce the maximum amount of fruit with literally consideration for quality.

A problem of misaligned objectives has given rise to the Grower Champagne movement.

Yet by 1959, Jacques Selosse, presiding over his vines in Avize, had began to decide that this was simply a path that was not sustainable. Yet breaking with tradition was not so easy - even as Jacques had established his own brand in that year, he still continued to sell the majority his fruit to the Lanson house. His first vintage yielded just 2,500 bottles.

A Champagne Maker Raised By Burgundy's Greatests

Headed into the 1980's, things were about to radically change. Jacques' son Anselme was about to take over. Anselme had studied oenology in Burgundy, and had studied the greats whose core focus was on bringing out the best of their terroir, as expressed through their wines. He would learn from Coche-Dury, Leflaive, Comte Lafon, and would come to understand that his Champagnes were no different - at the core of a great Champagne is ultimately a great wine.

Anselme Selosse.

Nevertheless it took some time for Anselme to really get into the swing of things - a short time considering the great impact he would bring to Champagnes. “I did not consume my wines. Then in 1976, my third year of winemaking, I was confronted with a great drought. I said to myself that the grapes were so ripe, I must produce less foam — just a half-mousse. So I put in less sugar, and by doing this I realized I had changed my approach. I discovered freedom.” says Anselme.

By the time Anselme formally took over the Selosse house in 1980, he was ready to bring about his own touch. At the point that he took over, the Selosse family had still sold most of their fruit to Lanson, and would produce some 12,000 bottles per year under their own name. But Anselme would completely wean off selling to larger Champagne houses, and would instead focus on raising the quality of his vineyards.

Studying under the likes of Burgundy's greatest had a massive impact on Selosse.

Doing Nothing In The Vineyards Is Everything

Anselme recognised that he was incredibly fortunate to sit atop of some amazing Grand Cru plots, spread across 8.3 hectares around the Cote des Blancs, with Pinot Noir and Chardonnay vines in notable villages such as Avize, Cramant, Oger, Le-Mesnil-sur-Oger, Ay, Mareuil-sur-Ay and Ambonnay. He thus concluded that his own job was to make sure the soils were as healthy as possible. For 20 years he adopted organic farming, he dramatically reduced yields, and cut off the use of chemical substances in his vineyards. This began to give way to fruit that was not just the ripest, but also the most expressive. By 2003, he would stop adhering to the dogma of organic farming and decide that each year he would simply do what he felt the vines needed. Yet deeply philosophical, Anselme would also embrace the concept of doing nothing.

Masanobu Fukuoka.

Deeply influenced by a Japanese farmer and philosopher, Masanobu Fukuoka, Anselme too believed that humans ultimately disturb nature most, and thus should simply refrain from interfering - what Fukuoka terms "do-nothing farming". And with as little pesky human involvement as possible, Anselme harvests on average less than half of the region's standard yields (in 2004, Selosse harvested 82.5 hl/ha compared to the regional 138 hl/ha).

Into The Cellars Of Selosse House, Where The Magic Happens

Yet that is but half the craft needed to produce quality Grower Champagne. In the cellars is where Selosse gets alittle more crafty, and has even been known to produce a signature Selosse style - one that is considerably more character forward, more expressive, stylised as being oxidative, savoury, salty and even nutty, characterised also by low dosage.

Low intervention in the vineyards is just half the story.

For starters, in the cellars, Anselme would move towards using yeasts he's cultivated from his own vineyards for fermentation. Rather than the conventional stainless steel tank vinification, Anselme uses oak barrel vinification instead (all aged six years or less, with no more than 20% new oak), with extended periods of ageing on the lees (8-12 months), and secondary malolactic fermentation prevented as well. He vinifies each parcel separately, and applies a good use of batonnage (stirring of sediment in the barrel). With little sulphur employed, he then bottles his wines, with disgorgement taking place six months prior to release. Minimal residual sugar is used as well to ensure purity of the terroir is being expressed with no make-up on.

His use of barriques to vinify his wines offers Anselme considerable control over how oxygen interacts with his base wines, and with each deviation from the classic Champagne playbook, that is how the Selosse House has been able to produce remarkably memorable cuvees. Yet Anselme has at least one more card up his sleeve - the Substance cuvee has become the Selosse House's most prized expression, one that yet again flies in the face of conventional Champagne wisdom for it actively avoids the use of a vintage as it is the House's version of a perpetual reserve.

Guillaume and Anselme in the cellars.

Perhaps A Non-Vintage Is What's Needed To Topple The Champagne Vintage Religion

Drawing back to his time spent in Burgundy, Anselme had wanted to eschew Champagne's religion of valuing its cuvees by vintage, and to instead draw focus and worth to the expression of a vineyard's terroir instead. On a visit to Spain in the early 1970's, Anselme had come into fateful contact with numerous of Jerez's top Sherry producers - he had observed the use of the Solera method by which Sherry wines are aged and produced. This was where barrels were stacked as layers, with those carrying older wines at a lower layer, whilst those carrying younger winers occupied a higher layer. Whenever the lower barrel was tapped for wines to be bottled, an equivalent amount from the above layer would be used to top up the lower barrel. This concept has since been taken by Champagne-makers in a practice that is now called the perpetual reserve.

By the mid-1980's Anselme would bring this practice to the Selosse House, but as is to be expected, he would do it his way - he would have two levels of reserve wines (called criaderas), where one was aged in barrel and the other in tank. The youngest vintage bottled for the Substance cuvee would account for about 22% of the total, and would be aged with the reserve wine. Together they would spend 6 years in bottle before being disgorged. This non-vintage (NV) cuvee, which would have otherwise occupied the entry levels of a larger Champagne house, with only 3,000 bottles produced annually, has become Selosse's most monumental achievement. 

It's future afoot at the Selosse House.

The Selosse House Into The Future

And in four decades, Anselme has taken the family's Selosse Champagne House and brought it to stardom. And perhaps that's enough for a lifetime - in 2018, Anselme had decided to step down and allow his son, Guillaume Selosse, to take over the reigns to the Selosse domain. For his work in raising the Grower Champagne revolution, Anselme was named France's best winemaker in every category - an unprecedented honour given to him in 1994 by Gault-Millau, for being "the most original winemaker in France".

In the coming years, Guillaume will have to prove that he can continue to bring the Selosse House ever higher, though already in his youth, he has proven that he shows every bit as much of promise - from a parcel of old vines in Cramant that he was gifted on his 18th birthday by his grandmother, Guillaume had already produce two outstanding cuvees, the Au Dessus du Gros Mont and the Largillier.

Till then!