"Why not us?"
After countless years of us being told to focus on "farmer fizz" rather than negociants, Victor Allier and Gil Conejo are helping to dissolve this over-correction. Negociants are no longer just defined as massive houses that produce millions of bottles each year; in the case of Champagne Cose, it is just a few barrels per year, filled with gorgeous wines from meticulously-sourced grapes within top vineyards owned by good friends. "We have no land," says the Mexico-born Gil, "But we buy from growers who see Champagne the way we think of Champagne."
That's a pretty terrific ideal, and it's masterminded by Victor - owner of the beloved Sacre Burger - and Gil, whose winemaking has been honed over years working with Jean-Baptiste Geoffroy (Champagne Rene Geoffroy), among others. Their production is kept purposely small, so that they can closely oversee each piece of production. "The harvest, the growing season is chosen by the grower," Conejo explains, "But we take several trips through the vineyard during the vintage - imagining." In what he would provide to us as the perfect simile, Gil continued: "Imagine you have two talented artists; you give each of them the same paper, the same canvas, and then the same paints, then you tell them to go to different rooms, but paint the same thing. They will come out different, but beautiful in their own way. The vertical structure of the wine is the human being, behind everything."
Vinification
After harvest, the grapes are pressed in the cellars of the chosen growers, and then immediately transported to the duo's cellar in Chouilly. The only thing they ask of the producer is to not add sulfur or fine the wine at all. In their cellars, Gil and Victor add a pied de cuve as a starter for the fermentation, to each barrel. Each wine will undergo its primary fermentation in barrel -225 & 228L in size. Used barrels make up about 70%, always from Selosse. The wines will all be allowed to go through malo-lactic conversion in barrel. As of this writing in early 2025, none of their vintages have had any sulfur added, though Gil does not rule it out if needed in the future.
One thing that shows the dedication to creating top Champagnes is aging under cork for the secondary fermentation, as opposed to crown cap. Undoubtedly, this method allows for a less reductive atmosphere and thus a wine that is more open and giving early in its life without sacrificing its ability to age.
Our first release contains three wines: Chardonnay from Roland Champion (Chouilly); Pinot Noir from Domaine de Bichery (Neuville-sur-Seine, Aube); Pinot Meunier from Bryan Marx (Marx-Coutelas, in Venteuil, Marne). With about three thousand bottles in total production from the 2022 vintage, this is a label of extreme rarity. That said, with the two men in question having talented noses for extreme quality, it is one to be feverishly sought out.
With the 2023 vintage due to be released in 2026, Champagne Cose has collaborated for their wines with Flavien Nowack, Antoine Bouvet and Thomas Perseval.
