Arriving for a visit with Éric Rodez at what looks like a residence in a quiet back street of Ambonnay, there’s a crane hovering over the building, with everything under construction. Éric Rodez is constructing a new winery at the family house. He has separate cellars close by in the town, but they have run out of space.

The Rodez family has been making wine in Ambonnay since 1757, and after a stint in Burgundy followed by experience as an oenologist at a large Champagne house, Éric came back to run the family domain. “My first vintage was an exceptionally bad year, 1984, and this created a tsunami in me. I felt no emotion in my new wine,” he recollects. Éric bubbles over with comparisons between wine and music, all the while drawing parallels between the emotions they create. “When you go to a concert, every concert is a new emotion, it’s not just a repeat. For me this is the logic for terroir wine. Every year I am writing a melody with a new interpretation.”

Éric is committed to biodynamic viticulture, but that is not enough. “Now I am using aromatherapy. Organic viticulture uses copper for mildew and sulfur for oïdium, but copper is toxic for the soil and sulfur is toxic for the wine. Using oils reduces the need for copper.” Out in the vineyards, he explains the morcelated character of his holdings, which consist of 35 separate parcels. “These 13 rows of Pinot Noir come from my father, these 39 rows of Chardonnay come from my mother.” He points to his vines where the berries are small and the bunches are small, then we cross the street to a neighbor’s vines, conventionally farmed, and Eric points to the difference: the berries and bunches are much larger. “It’s not bad,” he says, “but it’s nice industrial champagne, it dilutes the terroir.” He’s fervent about the advantages of biodynamics.

Eric Rodez’s biodynamic grapes (left) are much smaller than those of neighboring plots (right).

Winemaking is traditional in some respects and unconventional or modern in others. “Traditionally Champagne is 80% the new year and 20% reserves, but I use 70% reserve wines and only 30% of current vintage.” Pressing uses old manual presses constructed in 1936. “I don’t want to use a modern press. It’s very important to press slowly.” But there are a couple of gyropalettes, so Eric is not stuck thoughtlessly in tradition. The cellar contains stainless steel vats and barriques; 20% of the wine is fermented in old oak, and most élevage is in oak.

Behind the house, a new winery is being constructed.

Dosage is always low here. “All my wines are Extra Brut, but I put Brut on the label because I never know for the next vintage.” The style really showcases cépage, and you see the differences between the character of each cépage in a way that is unusually clear for Champagne. The Blanc de Blancs says, “I am Chardonnay,” and the Blanc de Noirs says, “I am Pinot Noir.” Coming from the Ambonnay grand cru, the blends have only Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. “I’m not interested in Pinot Meunier because it doesn’t age well,” Éric explains. All the wines have a great sense of balance and integration between density and vivacity.

“Cuvée des Crayères blends the structure of Pinot Noir with the sensuality of Chardonnay,” says Éric, and it shows that characteristic balance of the house. The Blanc de Blancs comes from Ambonnay and has a typically elegant uplift. The Blanc de Noirs has that characteristic sense of Pinot Noir’s density. “For the Blanc de Noirs I did not do MLF in order to have more sensuality.” The Zero Dosage is perfectly balanced, with no sense of anything missing, as sometimes happens in the category. It comes from a plot in the middle of the slope which gives good ripeness. The Cuvée des Grands Vintages is “a blend of the best vintages, it is very complex. “Les Beurys is “one plot, one vintage, one cépage,” from a plot of Pinot Noir with east exposure and 35 cms of soil. “It’s almost an anti-Champagne because there’s no assemblage.” The vintage Blanc de Blancs, Empreinte De Terroir Chardonnay, “is my view of the terroir of Ambonnay.” Long and deep, unmistakably Chardonnay, this says it all.

Flavorful would be a good one word summary of the style. You can only get a result like this if you hold back on the sulfur, says my companion, the Anima Figure, and indeed it’s very low. These are very distinctive wines, with everything focused on bringing out terroir and cépage.