DUFOUR/DOMAINE FRANCOISE MARTINOT

The Maison Champagne Dufour has a long history that began in Landreville by Robert Dufour, basing the production of its champagnes on the traditionalist method of this famous region of France known throughout the world.

It is with the entry into the company of his son Charles Dufour in the early 2000s that, for the first time, the maison abruptly changes its course moving quickly towards organic cultivation that involves the abandonment of chemical agents including, primarily, herbicides.

His intention was to push the company towards the production of Champagne that could express all the quality of the terroir and of the family's cultivation in a natural, eco-sustainable and pure way, abandoning any substance supporting production and using only copper, sulphur and biodynamics in the vineyard with the aim of obtaining organic certification (Ecocert) as soon as possible.

But the transformation of a vineyard towards organic certification is not a simple process, and Ecocert was only fully obtained in 2010, when Charles launched his own line of Champagne with a double brand: Champagne Charles Dufour and Bulles de Comptoir (the latter being the result of experiments begun in previous years.

In France, the search for organic and biodynamic cultivation has always been driven by the intention of winemakers to best express the characteristics of the terroir and the organoleptic properties of their vines, and the young Charles is no different: with the foundation of his own winery Les Vins du 7 Charles Dufour intends to present to the world the often underestimated terroir of the Bar-Sur-Seine area, in the Aube, where the vines are grown between the municipalities of Landreville, Essoyes and Celles-Sur-Ource.

No enrichment of the musts, alcoholic fermentation through the exclusive use of indigenous yeasts, no filtration of the bases, ageing in wooden barrels on fine lees and sulphur dioxide eliminated from the disgorging phase give life to champagne of great gustative tension, ample, in which all the terroir of the place is fully demonstrated.