Before grower-producers were remotely common, Vilmart et Cie was devotedly making wine from its own vines in 1890. Located in the Montagne de Reims, the vines are now tended by the family’s fifth generation. Because the family has a firm foothold in the region, it is privileged to tend some of the finest vineyards. If there is a “house Champagne” of the Napa Valley wine community, this is it. We can’t recount the number of times this has been poured for me by a winemaker, sales manager, or somm, and it’s downright delicious every time. Produced from the parcel the house considers its most exceptional, the wine is rich and giving from 10 months in barrel and 72 months aging in bottle. It remarkably retains loads of mineral expression. Try this newly released 2015 with a few more years in bottle and it won’t disappoint.
Vilmart & Cie. is not only one of the greatest grower-estates in Champagne, but one of the finest champagne producers of any type in the region. Vilmart & Cie. traces its history back to 1890, when it was founded by Désiré Vilmart, and from the beginning, Vilmart & Cie. has always been a grower Champagne house, making wine exclusively from estate-owned vines. Since 1989 the estate has been in the hands of Laurent Champs, the fifth generation of the family to take the helm of the house. Vilmart's Laurent Champs farms 11 hectares of vines and enjoys a rare advantage in this highly morcellated region: those 11 hectares are divided into merely 12 plots. All are close to the winery in Rilly-la-Montagne and oriented south or southeast, and all their soils are rich in chalk. A partisan of barrel fermentation and élevage—working exclusively with Meursault's tonnellerie Damy since 1992—Vilmart is a source of powerful, vinous wines that are invariably polished and racy. Recent releases have demonstrated an increasingly adept mastery of oak, its influence remaining firmly in the background, and they're developing more slowly. "This is one of Champagne's top estates, and the wines reviewed here come warmly recommended." -Robert Parker.
