Montgueux, a village in the Côte de Bar, is one of Champagne's best kept secrets. It's a prized component of many top maisons' blanc de blanc blends, but only recently have we been given the opportunity to experience the wine on its own. No one has been more dedicated to the revival of this once great, then completely abandoned, and newly rediscovered region than Emmanuel Lassaigne, of Champagne Jacques Lassaigne.

Just west of Troyer's, the medieval-era capital of Champagne, Montgueux is an isolated hill. It slowly fell into obscurity until the ravages of phylloxera in the late 19th century, when it was completely abandoned. Only in the 1960s — nearly 80 years later — did growers start to replant. But it didn't take long for houses like Charles Heidsieck to take note, referring to it as the “Montrachet of Champagne.”

The village is technically part of the Côte de Bar, Champagne's most southerly subregion of undulating hills, famous for Pinot Noir, Kimmeridgian limestone and clay soils, and warmer temperatures. Montgueux is planted with 95% Chardonnay, receives the benefit of the warmer growing season, and faces south-south-east on an outcropping of chalk.

It's like combining the aspect of Aÿ and the chalk of Les-Mesnil-sur-Oger with the temperatures of the Aube. This combination of features give its wines an unmistakable signature of pineapple flavors, a powerful structure and intense chalky mineral backbone. But until Emmanuel started estate bottling in 1999, we were never able to experience it on its own.

While a few other growers have followed suit, none of them has the same mastery of vines and wines as Emmanuel. He refuses organic certification, but practices organic viticulture, and farms to encourage vines healthy enough to fight diseases themselves, claiming he hasn't harvested rotten grapes in years. Sulphur is used only at the press, fermentations are spontaneous, and disgorgement completely by hand.