Champagne Baron-Fuenté Grande Reserve Brut NV

The Charly-sur-Marne vines have been in the Baron family since the 17th century. They are located on the wonderful Hillsides of the Marne Valley, west of the Champagne wine-growing region. The history of the Baron-Fuenté House, however, truly starts in 1962 when Gabriel Baron and Dolorès Fuenté receive 1-hectare of vines from Gabriel’s father as a wedding present. Passionate and audacious, the Champagne Baron-Fuenté is founded in 1967 and their first cuvees from the family’s vines are produced.

Dolorès and Gabriel’s children decide to join the family business to continue to make it flourish. Sophie is the first, in 1983. Thanks to her father, she learns the demanding job of a wine-grower, and acquires a true understanding of the secrets of both the Champagne Hillsides, and their emblematic grape varieties to be able to run the vineyard.

Ignace, passionate about how famous Champagne bubbles are produced, joins in 1992. His father passes down all of the family’s know-how and before he retires, allowing his son to develop his own style. Since then, Ignace has been working on Baron-Fuenté champagnes, bringing together deep respect for the terroir, Baron-Fuenté’s historical style and modern wine-making techniques.

Baron-Fuenté and its wine-growers continue to develop alongside the second generation of the family, which leads to expanding the cellar in 2000 to improve the conservation conditions of the wines. This evolution notably leads to being able to prolong the aging of the bottles beyond the average duration.

In 2007, thanks to a second cellar expansion, the labelling and sealing process is modernised with the help of new, more modern equipment that combines technology, quality and better working conditions.

In 2011, it was the same winegrowing values and the same passion for their terroir that brought the Baron-Fuenté and Lété-Vautrain families together. It is only a few kilometers from Charly-sur-Marne, on the Château-Thierry vineyard, that Champagne Lété-Vautrain established the property in 1968. Attached to the family heritage, Sophie and Ignace wished to keep the family identity and the independence of this House as a legacy to the work of the Lété-Vautrain family.

So as to meet the quality requirements of the family and the needs resulting from expanding the vineyard, a new pressing centre is designed in 2013. The new centre perfects the pressing and wine-making processes during grape harvesting, with the aim to better respect the grapes and their juice. The same year, Ignace, with a distinct taste for novelty and innovation, begins the vinification process in oak barrels for some of the cuvees, such as the Esprit Blanc de Blancs, Esprit Grand Cru and Grands Cépages Chardonnay.