Champagne MG Heucq
Difficult name, spectacular wines. Tucked away in an alley behind the elementary school in the tiny village of Fleury-la-Rivière is one of our most exciting discoveries in years. Guillaume and Melody Heucq are the 4th generation to run the 5 hectare family domaine, having officially taken over from Guillaume's dad in 2019 (but having been in charge of the winemaking for the last several years). The estate has been bottling under their own label since 1979, but the wines were decidedly old-school and relatively uninspiring until the new blood came on board.
They immediately upgraded the viticulture, eliminated herbicides and pesticides, and started vinifying their vineyard parcels separately, to better understand their terroir. All but a tiny piece of their vineyard acreage is in Fleury-la-Rivière, a picturesque hamlet high up the south-facing slopes of the Vallée de la Marne. The soil types vary greatly throughout the village, and they've identified sections of the different soils - limestone, sand, clay, and stones - each of which impart their own characteristics to the resulting wines.
Instead of his father's single bottling of non-vintage Brut, which blended everything together into one wine, Guillaume is now producing a dazzling line-up of mostly single-parcel wines, made in micro quantities of less than 300 cases each.
We're proud to be the first (and only) importer on this side of the pond to offer these exquisite examples of what's great about Grower Champagne. Production is so small on some of their bottlings that a few were already sold out and not available. I grabbed everything they would let me have for this first order, with promises of more goodies to come later this year.
Stylistically the Heucq wines make me think of a cross between Laherte Frères and Sophie Cossy. Detailed, chiseled and very terroir driven, yet ethereal and elegant at the same time. Let's dive in!
Since Guillaume and Melody took over the domaine, they began bottling this way, and for our nickel it is where the magic is happening.
All of these are made in quantities of a whopping 500-1000 bottles of each. In recent years, the Heucqs have upgraded their viticulture, eliminated herbicides and pesticides, and started vinifying their vineyard parcels separately, to better understand their terroir. As a result, there are certain parcels that have stood out among the others.