The beautiful story of Marc champagnes: a house at the service of quality

Arthur is the 12th generation of his family to work on the Marc en Champagne estate in Fleury La rivière. Accompanied by his son who joined him in the adventure, they keep the best of the traditional techniques to elaborate champagnes of great quality.

The MARC house: in the family for 12 generations

Domaine Marc has been in the family for 12 generations. Arthur MARC has been working there since 1975 and his son started with him 5 years ago. They work together 4Ha of vines, 90% of which are pinot noir and chardonnay and the rest pinot meunier.

Arthur has always wanted to take over the family estate where his father worked before him. As a young man, he was already accompanying him in the vineyards and the takeover of the estate was a logical step.

At the time when his grandfather worked on the estate, only one vintage of Champagne was produced. His father initiated the expansion of the offer and Arthur continued it by increasing the range of Champagne of the MARC house to 8 vintages.

MARC Champagnes all tell a story

When he talks about his champagnes, Arthur tells a story for each of them. "The rosé is called Rosé Chéri. We gave him this name in reference to the history of the estate", he tells us, "the rich owner of the estate, Arthur, is the one who gave it its name.taire, a courtier at the court of Louis XIII, was exiled from the court for love stories which led him to provoke a duel marquis. ». This amorous legend will give the name of the rosé champagne.

There are also the vintages which take a Latin name " Perla Nera, Perla Rosa, Ultima, are the vintages of exception. We chose Latin because it's pretty and it's the origin of our language" explains Arthur. There is also "The vintage 328, the beautiful year 2011", for the vintage champagne whose name refers to the 328th year of Marc's harvest.

"Vintage champagnes are produced according to the years, we don't make them systematically. The important thing for these vintages is to guarantee an excellent quality" underlines Arthur.

Traditional work at the service of quality

The goal? "To obtain very well-balanced champagnes" asserts Arthur, and to achieve this, the work of assembly is essential: "it is necessary to make sure that the grape varieties complement each other in the cuvée and that none of them takes on too much importance, otherwise the champagne is no longer in balance".

Arthur has kept from these ancestors very traditional working methods which allow him to ensure the elaboration of high quality champagnes. He explains: "The pressing is carried out with a traditional manual press. We only use the first juices because they are better and of higher quality: more complete, more acidic and richer in sugars. Even if this reduces the quantity, the quality is then much higher".

"Our particularity is that we don't do malolactic fermentation. This allows us to make fresh, lively and lemony wines, especially as global warming is being felt a lot in Champagne: the degrees are rising and the acidities are falling," explains Arthur.

In the vineyard, reasoned cultivation is the rule: "we work differently each year, according to the needs and conditions. When they are good, we can drastically reduce treatments," explains the winemaker. For the last 3 years, they have also been trying grassing under the rows because according to Arthur: "the earth does not like to remain empty, it needs to be covered". The clovers planted are intended to limit weeds and avoid the passage of the plough, which "causes a lot of work and is very polluting," notes Arthur.

"Finally, he concludes, wine is like children. You raise them, and then once in the bottle, you don't control anything anymore. They evolve of their own accord as they wish. "

"Selling online is the future."

"Beyond trade fairs and export markets, our objective today is to develop on the internet. Thanks to the Les Grappes site, but also to ours, we can sell directly online. We are also working on our visibility on social networks. We believe that the future lies there, and that's why we are currently working on our project to improve our presence on the internet", concludes the winegrower pragmatically.

Manon Mouly (for Les Grappes)