Eric Rodez
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Early in my career, his bottles stuck out - a somewhat odd shape, a classy, understated label, and I remember the Head Sommelier musing, "Baby Krug!" In fact, Rodez did work for Krug and was tipped to follow their methods in several publishings around that time, leading to the familiar moniker among wine folk. Yet, though he does use barriques for much of his production, where he is most like Krug is the devotion to blending, and an insatiable search for quality. However, he is most unlike Krug in that his wines of such quality are extremely limited, so snap up whatever you can find!
Ever the agents of change, the Rodez family was one of very few growers in Champagne to produce their own wine in the time where negociants ruled the scene - the family roots date back more than 200 years in Ambonnay. Today Eric presides over 9 hectares of old Pinot Noir vines and 7 of Chardonnay vines in the village of AMbonnay, one of the grand villages of the region that the family has long called home, and where for a stint last decade Eric serves as mayor! He and his son Mickael represent the 8th and 9th generations to work the vines.
While he spent vintages in Burgundy, Beaujolais and the Rhone in his youth, Eric's passion for Champagne was raised exponentially when working at Krug. Notoriously masters of the art of blending, Eric adapted many of the techniques he learned in his stint with Krug to his own wines, and he routinely will blend in five to ten different vintages to his cuvees. Do not mistake these wines, however, to be oxidative or overtly rich; his old vines produce concentration with brilliant acidity, and he blocks the malo-lactic conversion which retains the freshness his wines are famous for.
Ambonnay's contrast to its surrounding regions lies in its position and soil - it faces largely South-East and due East, making it differ from the due-South-facing Bouzy, where you find more overt richness. Ambonnay's soils are deep and clay-based, but with silex and chalk redolent throughout, which provides this mineral strike more akin to that of Meursault.
About 70% of Eric's wines are fermented in barrel, and the stock of back-vintages in the barrel room is enviable. Only when a vintage is deemed truly special from a particular plot is it made into its own bottling, and even then the release will come at least 5 years after the vintage harvest. As he progresses through sustainable and biodynamic viticulture, the wines have taken on a more clear and precise shape, while still having the profound vinosity that attracted us all to his wines in the first place!
