VOUETTE & SORBEE

Our visits with Bertrand, the owner and vigneron at Vouette et Sorbee, are epic soul searching experiences. We have actually left a day with Bertrand seriously contemplating what we are doing with our lives.

Bertrand worked for and is a disciple of Anselme Selosse. The Blanc D’Argile vineyard above is a combination of cuttings from Selosse’s vineyard and the Valmur grand cru vineyard belonging to Vincent Dauvissat. Bertrands 4 hectares of vineyards in the village Buxiere-sur-Arce are actually closer to Chablis than to Reims – the forest in the picture above is the southern most limit of the Champagne AOC.  

The vineyards are very steep (especially so for Champagne) and Bertrand worked them with horses. His neighbors (mostly conventional farmers) starting calling him “The Horse Killer” behind his back. Bertrand says he has never killed a horse (of course) and that they did amazing work. He subsequently invited the village over to show them how happy his animals were. 

Vouette et Sorbee has been biodynamic since 1998. Bertrand himself is the head of the association of organic vignerons in Champagne. The soils are almost more Chablis than Champagne consisting of Kimmeridgian clay and Portlandian limestone. The wines, Argile and most of Fidele are on Kimmeridgian while Saignee D’Sorbee is Limestone.

Harvesting is all manual with traditional coquard pressing in the winery. Fermentations are natural and occurs in 400L barrels. Malolactic occurs naturally in the spring and the wines are bottled without fining or filtering or dosage and very little to no sulphur depending on the cuvée. 

“Vouette et Sorbees are wines first and foremost. They should be openend in advance, given some air and served in regular white wine glasses, never flutes.”– Galloni