Extending a hundred kilometers east to west on either side of the river for which it is named, the Vallée de la Marne is the largest and most geologically diverse Champagne sub-region. A third of all Champagne vineyards can be found here, as well as the monastery where Dom Perignon reputedly invented sparkling wine. Famous producers like Billecart-Salmon, Philiponnat, Bollinger and Jacqueson are all located here as well. 

This month we are featuring the wines of Gamet, a much smaller producer whose story is nonetheless as emblematic of the Marne’s enticing blend of dynamism and tradition as any of its larger neighbors. 

Our tale begins just after the end of World War I, when many small growers decided to start making and bottling their own Champagne. Victoire Garnier, “Mardouillate” and Berthe Heucq, “Fleurysienne”, were two such intrepid business women, and Gamet begins at the point when their two families, from the right and left banks of the Marne river, came together.

The Garnier clan were farmers originally, who expanded into tending vines in Mardeuil, on the left bank of the Marne, bottling just 800 bottles of Champagne each year. In the 1950s, François Gamet, grandson of Victoire Garnier, came back to the estate and began to expand, planting more land and bottling more champagne. Meanwhile, across the river in Mardeuil, Berthe Heucq’s grandson Robert was growing his family’s holdings in Fleury-la-Rivière, bottling his own wines and tending vines on the right bank of the Marne.

In 1993, Fabienne Heucq, Robert’s daughter, and Philippe, the son of François Gamet met and fell in love. Since 2018, the estate has been led by their daughter and fourth-generation vigneron Marianne. Champagne Gamet is a grower-producer, with vineyards in eight hectares in three villages – Mardeuil on the left bank and Fleury-la-Rivière and Damery on the right bank. Marianne’s brother, Jean-François, a trained enologist currently working in Bordeaux, travels back home to assist his sister and parents with harvest, blending, and bottling, but the estate is run by Marianne. 

This corner of Champagne where the winery is located is just west of the town of Epernay, near the Côte sud d’Epernay, a series of hills that encircles the second most important urban center in Champagne. Mardeuil is just north of the Côte Sud, at the mouth of the Vallée de la Marne, on the Rive Gauche, directly opposite the 1er Crus of Cumières and Hautvilliers. Here, all three major grape varieties thrive on different soils. The subsoil is chalk, with various depths of clay, marl, and silex. The vineyards in each of these three villages face different directions, giving different characters to the wines even though they are less than 8km away from each other

In addition to tending grape vines, Marianne and her brother also produce excellent ciders from eight old apple varieties. The production remains very small but will expand slightly in the future, with several single-plot ciders in addition to the delicious Champagnes in the range.

We have for you this August the Rive Droite (Right Bank) Blanc de Noirs bottling, and its Rive Gauche (Left Bank) fraternal twin. Both are primarily made from the Meunier grape that predominates in this area, but the latter features a dash of Chardonnay as well. 

Cheers!

The PlumpJack Team