2013 Mailly Cuvee L’intemporelle Grand Cru Champagne

The formation of Champagne co-ops was a long time in the making. The Champagne Houses, or Négociant-Manipulants (NMs) as they are also known, had for decades undercut the price of grapes in the region. If there was a larger pool of buyers for the grapes, this might not have been an issue for the growers. Still, because the process of making Champagne was so expensive, only producers of a specific size (and those with considerable resources) could make France’s premiere sparkling wine.

While some growers would have liked to turn their beautiful Pinot Noir and Chardonnay grapes into their own brand of sparkling wines, thereby removing the producers from the equation and selling directly to consumers, the costs associated with this track were simply too high. At the end of the day, growers had little bargaining power because if they did not agree to the price set by the producer, they would be left with literal tons of grapes and no way to use them.

It was under these economic pressures that a group of twenty-four growers banded together to pool the village of Mailly’s interests and form the Champagne Mailly co-op.

Champagne Mailly: Together to the Top

A sense of community is the soul of Champagne Mailly. In fact, Mailly’s motto is “together to the top,” – meaning each grower succeeds only when they all succeed. This feeling of togetherness goes back almost one hundred years, to 1929, when the group was founded in the village of Mailly, in the northern portion of Montagne de Reims, and home to nine Grand Crus.

The co-op took an enormous risk when they came together and began brainstorming ways to increase the price of their grapes. That the growers had the audacity to “upset the cart” in the buyer-grower relationship, drove the Négociant-Manipulants away, and they ultimately refused to buy the Mailly grapes. This setback of no buyer lasted two years, but the co-op was determined to promote what they were selling as a product worthy of a fair price, and they dug their heels in and got creative. 

As a sort of pilot project, they decided to rent rather than buy their own production equipment, and they used recycled bottles, which were less expensive than new Champagne bottles. The test run was ultimately successful, and the first vintage of 3,600 bottles quickly sold out.

The same spirit with which Champagne Mailly was created nearly a century ago remains today. The very same Champagne caves that were dug into the earth by the original founders now see their grandchildren mastering the art of Champagne for a new audience.

Davy Żyw, a Champagne Buyer with Berry Bros. & Rudd, who works with Mailly, puts this lengthy history of the town best when he said in an interview, “The town [Mailly] and the co-op are one and the same. All of their shareholders are the historical families of the town, meaning each family member owns the land and has a stake in the operation. There’s very much a shared mentality there: they want to produce the best grapes possible so that the best Champagne can be made. That way, the whole community benefits.”

Mailly-Champagne: The Vineyards and Soil

The soil in and around the village of Mailly-Champagne is rich with chalk. It’s believed that vines planted in chalky soils absorb the alkaline within the chalk and that naturally turns up the acid in the grape. 

This subtle chalkiness is even perceptible on the palate of the 2013 Mailly Cuvée L’Intemporelle Grand Cru Champagne, as you will see in our tasting notes below.

The other aspect that stands out about the vineyards of Mailly Champagne is that of the 35 grand cru vineyards where they source fruit; each is positioned in such a way that the vines face a different direction, so the growers are picking north-, south-, east-, and west-facing fruit. This unique strategy results in varying sugar levels and ripening stages and allows the winemakers the gift of working with a collection of grapes that are wholly unique in their flavor characteristics.