Thibaud Brocard on new ideas, connections and challenges in Champagne.
So you come from a family of winemakers. Have you always wanted to make wine and was it always the plan for you to take over from your father?
It's a bit of a lie to say that we always wanted to do this job of being a winemaker, but we were born into it. We grew with it. We always saw our dad doing it. And when you grow a bit to 18, 20, years old, you see it's a family duty to take care of it.
It was not a dream for me to become a winemaker when I first started. It was duty to my family first, but now this duty has grown into something I love to do, and into a passion, and now it's even something more geeky. I spend all my time talking about wine viticulture.
So no, I didn't start with wanting to be a winemaker my whole life. It's not true. I could say, yes wow, it's a wonderful time. But no, no, at the beginning it was a pain in the ass to be in the vineyard for me when I was 14, 15, years old. But my dad brought me to the vineyard a lot. And when you grow up, you see that it's a legacy. Your parents, your grandparents, worked hard to to keep it alive and to make it bigger and stronger, and you don't want to be the one who loses the feeling of doing these things. And I'm quite happy I pursued it.
I like that transparency. I totally get that when you are forced to do something when you're a kid, you don't love it right away.
Yeah like you want to go to the party with your friend, you don't want to be woken up at seven in the morning on a Saturday. But now, I think I would do the same with my son, and I thank my dad for all those shitty mornings that I hated. Because for me, when I started to be a boss with my guys, I could tell them I've already done this for 10 years. I could give them advice. I could say, we're gonna do a good job together.
If you just arrive at being a boss and you didn't do it for 10 years, you don't have any understanding of the real job, because going into viticulture, when it's September, it's okay. But when you get into January, March, when it's a cold morning and it's raining, you need to know the job to do it well.
Did you ever have an aha moment with champagne, where you felt like you really fell in love with it?
I think I fell in love with it when my dad told me, all right, I think I can give you the lead. Because the first years, when you are a family business, you are not the boss, so you are not completely using your ideas, so you are working under the ideas of your father or your mother or the one who is working above you. And I was full of ideas for the viticulture, for the winemaking, for the business. And in 2013 and 14, when he told me, okay, now we can start to let you do it by yourself, then it started to get really interesting. I could start to do my own label, my own cuvée, my own organic viticulture, making some triumphs in the vineyard. So, yeah, it started this way when I got the freedom.
Did you work somewhere outside of the region before you took over the family winery in Champagne?
Yes, I worked in Sancerre. I did my first training at Berthier, a friend of mine. Then I moved to New Zealand. In New Zealand, I've been working at Pegasus Bay, which is in South Island of Christchurch. I was looking to see what was happening in others places on the planet. Because we always say French is the best, Europe has the best of wine, but it's not only.I've also been to California. I think in Europe, we are more impacted by the sustainability problem, well not impacted, but we take care of it more than in the new world. And the fact of having Appellation system in Europe makes it much more strict. So there is a bit of chauvinist behind it, but I learned what I want and what I love in Europe.
Was the winery at all organic before you started? Or were you the one who made the decision to convert?
I think my dad did pretty good viticulture for his generation. It was a chemical generation completely and still, my dad quit herbicides 20 years ago, which was really new. He was the only in the village doing this. So it was really great. He quit anti botrytis, anti oidium. He was just using anti mildew, which was really useful. It's a tough place to work without this in the south of champagne. But he didn't think it was a bad idea to go organic when I started it,a bit afraid yes, but we made it.
Do you also engage with biodynamic practices?
I don't. I like to see it. I like to enjoy it, but I'm someone who is logic-minded. And to me, there is a kind of esoterism with biodynamics sometimes that I don't completely understand. So I won't do something I don't understand completely, maybe one day. But I love seeing all the people doing this, all the preparations and everything.
I do work with the moon a lot, for the spray, for the cutting, for the degorgement, for the bottling, because there is a huge impact. But the moon impact is easier to feel. You see the pressure. You see the water level moving so we feel it, but all the rest with the microorganism is a bit more hard to grasp. So for now, we don't do it that much.
What are some of the major differences you noticed when you converted to organics?
I really think the thing we wanted from being organic was having more depth in the wine and also better balance. Because when it was not organic with my dad, we had some years with strong maturity of grapes already, but we didn't find a true expression or a real balance in the wine. And since, I would say, the last five or seven vintages, I really think we have found a better balance.
It's something way more integrated. Before, it felt like you would drink first the alcohol, then you have the sugar, then you have the acidity. It was not completely integrated together. And I think with the organic side, with not impacting the juice with chemicals, it has allowed us to get a more uniform juice. Now when you drink it, it's more clear. I don't know if you know what I mean by that, but it's just much easier to drink.
To me, that was the main difference that came from being organic because on the viticulture side, it was already really close to it. So we didn't find a big impact there, because, while we were using chemicals before 2016, it was in really low quantities, and only for the anti mildew. So the soil was already out of herbicide, out of insecticide or other fertilisers, so it was already quite alive. It was just a small step to the true organic conversion.
What about in the cellar? What does your cellar process look like?
I used to say we have a really sober cellar. We don't do a strictly natural cellar. It means we take care of the wines. If we have to adapt a bit of sulphur, sometimes we do it or we don't. It really depends on the vintage. But we don't do any fining, filtration, and no stabilisation. And we don't interact with any product. We do use Bentonite, which is a white clay, and we use a bit of sulfites if we need it. That's it. No enzyme, no yeast, no carbons, none of this stuff. So the idea is to do the minimum amount without allowing faults. So yeah, it's reasonable winemaking. We do alcoholic fermentation, malolactic every time, we keep it on the lees until March or April, and then we do one or two rackings, and then we do the bottling, really easy winemaking. I love to say, if you bring nice grapes into the winery, you just have to follow it.
And ageing? How long do you age the wines?
So we do a big part of the ageing in stainless steel. We do 30% in barrels, and we do a bit of concrete for the maceration. So we do about nine months of ageing on the tank, and then the ageing on bottles, it's longer. For the tradition, the entry level, we do about 20 to 30 months, I love minimum 20, it's giving more depth to the wine. And all the vintage we do is between four and six years. Four when it's a warm vintage, six when it's a cold vintage, to bring more rawness to the wine. I wish I had more space to age but sometimes you also have the business controlling you.
As a winemaker in the Côte des Bar in the southern part of Champagne, how do you feel the winemaking styles and philosophies differ from those in the north? What are some of the unique advantages and challenges of producing your wines in the south?
For me, the main difference is that I think we have more frost damage every year, and obviously a completely different soil. So we aren't targeting the same champagne.
I'm a huge fan of the Vallée de la Marne, but we are never targeting the same objective, I guess, because we have a ridge joint with many brown clay, white clay, red clay, and different limestones, which are completely different from the north. So it's a good thing to have these two different parts of champagne. But I think the main things that shocked me is the level of frost. It's really impacting the wine that we do, especially compared to the majority of the Champagne in the north.
How about philosophies towards winemaking? Do you feel like the mentalities are different?
We all know there is a war from the last decade between la Marne and l'Aube. But my generation, the guy between 25 and 45 years old, he erased it. Now, we have really good connection. We talk with each other. We go to see people in the North. They come to the south. We exchange some bottles together. We have dinner together. We talk together about techniques. So it's so cool to see the bright future of champagne now.
And I remember the first time I go, I'd been to Reims and Épernay to make a delivery of champagne. My dad looked at me and said, "You're gonna sell champagne in the north of champagne, you're gonna sell champagne to La Marne? Something's wrong." And I told him, no, now champagne is proud to have two parts, south, north, different wine, different wine making, different soil, same process, obviously, but different soil, different climates. And it's so cool now.
And we see during some of the fairs that people of La Marne are so happy to come down, and we are so happy to come north and discover what they do. Because we did not know that much of La Marne before, because it was not perceived well to go to La Marne and learn and see 15 years ago. Now, it's so cool to see what happens there, seeing some really cool Pinot Meunier makers. It's a really brilliant future for champagne. Very happy with it.
How do you navigate the idea of sustainable farming in a region like champagne? Do you find that the new generation is wanting to put in the effort to be more sustainable?
Okay, it's big subject, so I will be absolutely transparent. I'm organic. And this year, for example, 2024 it was not sustainable to be organic. We had tons and tons of spraying, a lot of infection of the soil, gasoline production. So this kind year, we are organic, but not really sustainable. So I think it's our generation that will move forward and find another way than just being only organic.
Because if you're organic in Corsica, in Spain, in South France, that's so easy. If you're in North burgundy, Jura, Sancerre, South champagne, North champagne, it's wet during the spring, cold, can be also warm and wet. It's paradise for mushrooms. So when you go to '19 vintage, '20, '22 it's all your easy, dry, sunny. But one year every three years, we had a shit vintage, which is really tough, and I'm not able to say I was sustainable this year, like '21 like '18.
So it's a lot, you know, buying your sugar that's used for the second press, only in France, not in other countries. Buying your bottles in France, not from Dubai, buying your boxes in France and not in other countries. I think sustainability, it's a long topic. I'm selling in more than 20 countries. Is that sustainable? I'm not so sure, but it's the only way to sell all my bottles, because I'm not able to sell everything in France. But the production I do, selling it in the international market is huge. So it's a really tricky topic, because we will never be 100% sustainable, so we do our best in viticulture, in the wine making, but the road is still long.
That's actually fascinating, because I think people tend to think organics and sustainability go hand in hand, but actually it's two different topics in a way.
I think people would not be happy to hear that organic is not always sustainability. Because copper sulphur is mainly what we use in the vineyard, we don't use chemical synthesis products, which is great, because using that causes a lot of pollution. But there is an efficiency from it that we are all aware of.
So for the '24 vintage in Champagne, in organics, we all lost so many grapes, maybe 80, 90% of it. So what is the key? Continue this way, with a shitty vintage, and cross our fingers that the next vintage is okay? Or, on the shit side, using chemicals two, three times maximum to maybe save it, reduce the pollution of the compaction, pollution of the tractors. I'm not sure there is a black and white choice. There is no right or wrong. It's more difficult to understand it.
So if you go to a label like 'organic', you have to work in a specific way, always the same, but it's too close-minded for me to think this way, there are still more questions. I'm not clever enough to answer them all on my own, but it's a talk we can have with many other winemakers.
Just a reminder that in vintage '24, we had in a year more than 1000 metres of water, which is more than double what we should have.
Speaking of, how has climate change impacted champagne and how do you think the region is going to adapt in the future?
Good, good topics. I would say the first big vintage we had that was really sunny was 2003, we started harvesting in August. It was the first of August. Then we have 10 years quiet, and it's all back in ‘11. In ‘11, we start again in August. And then since ‘14, it's every other year, we start in August because it's too hot, because it's too dry, it's too warm. That's typically from the global warming effect.
So '14, '15, it was starting in August, '17, '18 also. So first, it's extending the maturity of the grapes, because before it was 100 days between flowering and picking the grapes. Now, it's more like 75 to 80 days. So we do not have the same maturity of phenols. We have sugar maturity, which is okay, but we don't have a complete phenolic maturity. So sometimes when we pick the 15 of August, I'm not sure it's going to be the same balance, the same flavours, then we can have on the 15th of September, because there is more time for the phenolics to get in place in the grapes. So it's one of the other points.
And now it's no longer uniformed. We have '24 with so much rain, we picked late in September, and then we have '23, so much grapes, sunny, dry, no rain. So it's so hard to adapt. And every year is now so different. So is this normal? I don't think so. I think there is a true effect of the climate change, and it affects us, obviously.
Do you think there's going to be more Coteaux Champenois made as it gets warmer?
Probably, I mean, '22 and '23, we did really high alcoholic degrees because it was ripe. '24 was lower, around 10 degrees, high acidity, low pH, which is also great for champagne. I love to make champagne with a 10, 10.5 degrees alcohol because then you keep the freshness, the tension and the verticality. So yeah, probably we're gonna do more Couteaux with strong vintages. I don't know.
What I know is, now I'm releasing the 2018 vintage. And I was so afraid, because '18 is a vintage with really high pH, low acidity, not a really good balance when it was on juice, it was too heavy in the mouth. But finally,when we tasted it the first time, it's now full of limestone and tension. And it's hopefully because we have great terroir of fresh limestone. So it's saving us to have big terroir. If it was on a sandy soil, I would be afraid with global warming but for now, the terroir is compensating for it.
And also one last big change is the frost. Before, 15 years ago, 20 years ago, we had frost early May, end of April. It would be a small frost attack of minus one, minus two degrees, and just in the morning.Now, in the last five or ten years, we have frost early of April, one month earlier, and we have minus five, minus six, minus seven on small buds, which are already sensitive to frost, and it's making way more damage than it was doing five to ten years ago. So early frost, more damage, early harvest, not the same ripeness. Yeah, it's changing the champagne future a lot, so we have to adapt.
And the key is the terroir, because we cannot do a lot. So because we don't want to add acidity, we don't want to change the true wine. So, yeah, we need big terroir, and hopefully, with the nice limestone in our region, it will allow us to keep this tension, hopefully.
When most people buy champagne, they tend to do so for special occasions. Do you think of champagne as a special occasion wine?
Yeah, we have to keep in mind, champagne is a celebration. Always, always, even if we've turned to gastronomy since 10, 15, years, it's always cool to pop a bit of champagne for a birthday, for 40, for Christmas time. But it doesn't have to be a bad moment. It could be a great wine with low dosage, with depth inside, with true flavours of terroir, and you can drink it in wine glass and not in a coup. So we can just modernise the celebration. But Champagne is, to me, it's good to still use it for celebration. It's a part of champagne. So we just have to stop the champagne shower, stop the shitty glass and stop the dosage of 12 grams. But if you do it with right tools, it's still great for a celebration, totally.
Do you have an unusual champagne pairing that you enjoy?
I have never been able to tell people what a good Champagne pairing is. To me champagne, because it's high in acidity, it can pair with a lot of stuff. Spicy, not spicy, creamy, not creamy, buttery. But do I have a strange pairing? Last year we had some Surströmming at the harvest. You know the fermented fish from Sweden. When you first open it, it's not good, but with onions, some bread, and then champagne, it was way better. So that's maybe an unusual idea.
How about the varietals you work with, is there one varietal your favour over the other?
The grape I love the most, for sure, it's Pinot Noir, mostly because it's the one I know the best. The one I love to drink the most is Pinot Noir, and it's going so well in Cotes des Bars. We have Pinot Blanc, we have Chardonnay. But I never had the same pleasure working with and drinking it, even if it's a good wine. Also, I get more fillings with Pinot Noir and with Pinot Noir you can do so many different wines. You can do red, rose, strong whites, soft whites, coteaux. You can do so many different kinds of champagne. So yeah, Pinot Noir obviously.
And there is some new varietals that I would love to work with. Maybe Petit Meslier or Pinot Meunier would be grapes that I would love to plant. Because everytime I drink Petit Meslier or Pinot Meunier from friends, I love it so much. So maybe one day putting Petit Meslier or Pinot Meunier would be so cool.
Is there something you're experimenting with now, or a style you're working towards for the future?
The last two years, I've had a lot of projects, but this last vintage took everything, so we did nothing extra. But since three years ago,we've been doing wine we're calling experience style. So we want to show that the segment juice of press is also great wine. So we are working on the wine making of it, making long ageing, trying in concrete, in stainless, in wood to see what fits it better.
So we have the project of making, I call it Chimera rose. It means making a rose of maceration with Pinot Blanc to try to bring more rounded flavours and not something too fruity. So, yeah, we have projects. And the idea is to, we want to control the wine but with less impact. So we have to know the place the wine is coming from. Is it a place with big pH, low pH, big acidity, easily oxidative or not. So we are curious and we start to know a bit more about these places. So if I could do wine that I control in terms of no big volatility, easy flavours, direct flavours, no added sulfites, it would be a good objective, and that's it.
How would you describe your champagne in three words? You can only use three.
Verticality, tension, and white fruit.
What kind of wine do you like to drink in general?
Good question. Less expensive burgundy.
