While others tend their vineyards, Hubert Soreau visits his Clos. The difference is significant.
It is a remote place, and that feels good. He is a quiet man who acts deliberately. As a good observer, he assesses the shape of each individual vine in the vineyard. In his Clos l'Abbé he knows them all and treats them like individuals. His vineyard is not a vineyard, but a garden, and the surrounding walls preserve its history, which began with the monks who made their own wine many centuries ago.
With patience and diligence, Hubert Soreau has breathed new life into the past. While oak barrels produce still wine, the bubbles form during bottle fermentation under cork. With him, there are no empty slogans or ideas; he works precisely and meticulously in a traditional way. The secret of how wine becomes champagne takes place in the quiet shadow of the cellar. Here Hubert has made time his ally so that his wines can fully develop.
In the glass, the wine speaks for Hubert. Three words, a glance, and then... a full-bodied wine, well-structured, powerful and subtle, with a certain finesse. Like the bubbles rising through the wine to bloom on its surface, the bubbles of a Clos are a whisper, a secret prayer of joy.
As for Hubert Soreau, I can confirm that he approaches the production of his Clos l’Abbé champagne as meticulously as a goldsmith. His Chardonnay grapes grow on three small plots of the historic Clos l’Abbé near Épernay (once the oldest walled or fenced vineyards in Champagne, as old documents show that vines were already cultivated there in the 9th century). I personally love Chardonnay. It always surprises me with unexpected flavor notes and aromas. It can be subtle and restrained, thick and sluggish, powerful or delicate, have aromas of butter, lemon, flowers, and vanilla, be mineral or juicy... Perhaps I should better write in the plural and say that I like “Chardonnays.” Of course, there are also completely boring Chardonnay wines on the market, because it is not a MAGICAL grape variety that automatically produces great wines. You have to treat it with a certain respect so that it gives us a wine worthy of its name.
In Hubert’s vineyards and cellars, this is indeed the case: pruning in the “Chablis style,” no herbicides, hand-picked grapes, pressing whole grapes in a vertical press, fermentation in oak barrels, bottle fermentation (prise de mousse) in the traditional way with natural cork... And at least three years of bottle aging before Hubert considers taking the wines out of the cellar.
