Frederic Savart 1er Cru Mont des Chretiens Champagne 2022
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The Land
Ecueil is Pinot Noir country, which makes a Chardonnay from here a minority report. The village sits in the Petite Montagne de Reims, rated 90% premier cru, with 144.5 hectares planted, and 76% of that is Pinot Noir. Chardonnay accounts for roughly 12%. The soils explain part of the reason: Ecueil is sandy, with clay on the mid-slopes and only pockets of chalk, nothing like the belemnite chalk banks of the Cote des Blancs. Le Mont des Chretiens is a lieu-dit on that sand, facing southwest. Sand drains fast and warms early, which pushes ripeness, while the northwest flank of the Montagne keeps the nights cold. The result is a Chardonnay with weight and width underneath the tension, rather than the vertical, blade-like style chalk produces.
The Wine
Le Mont des Chretiens is 100% Chardonnay from that single Ecueil parcel, fermented and aged in 500-liter barrels and finished at 3 g/L, an extra-brut dosage. The large-format barrel is the key decision: at 500 liters the surface-to-volume ratio is low enough that the wood adds texture and slow oxidative polish without laying down vanilla or toast. White peach, bruised yellow apple, hazelnut skin, chamomile and a struck-match edge, then a broad, creamy middle and a dry, salty, bitter-almond finish. The 2022 season was what the Comite Champagne called a solar year: summer drought broken by well-timed rain, the earliest harvest start on record at August 20, fruit picked clean with no rot, and a yield set at 12,000 kg per hectare, the highest allocation since 2008. Musts came in above 10% potential alcohol with acidity intact.
The People
Frederic Savart was a professional footballer before he was a vigneron. He signed with Stade de Reims, then turned down a transfer after meeting the woman he would marry and went home to Ecueil to work with his father Daniel. He returned to the estate in 1993 at 23, pulled the family out of the cooperative in 2001, and has run it himself since 2005. The domaine his grandfather Rene started in 1947 is still small, roughly four hectares, three in Ecueil and one in Villers-aux-Noeuds, planted only to Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. Savart's move over the last two decades has been steadily away from blends and toward single-parcel, vintage-dated bottlings like this one. Farming is preventive rather than curative: cover crops, no insecticides, low yields, and fruit picked only once it has real maturity.
Food Pairing
The barrel weight here wants food with fat and a little char. Roast a whole chicken with lemon under the skin and eat the crisp thigh meat against the wine's acidity. Scallops seared hard in brown butter, finished with capers, meet the nutty, smoky side of it directly. A gratin of potatoes and Comte works because the salt in the aged cheese sharpens the salinity in the finish. Or keep it simple: pork rillettes, cornichons, mustard, good bread. This is Chardonnay from the Montagne de Reims for the night you want Champagne on the table all the way through dinner, not just before it.
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Champagne is the northernmost major wine region in France, defined by its cool climate, chalky soils, and centuries-old tradition of sparkling wine production. Centered around the towns of Reims and Épernay, the region is divided into key subzones like the Montagne de Reims, Vallée de la Marne, and Côte des Blancs, each favoring different grapes—Pinot Noir, Meunier, and Chardonnay respectively. The region’s signature chalk and limestone soils provide excellent drainage and impart a distinctive mineral character to the wines. While méthode champenoise was refined here in the 17th century, Champagne’s global prestige grew through the 19th and 20th centuries, cementing its role as the benchmark for sparkling wine worldwide.
