Lots of Champagne producers tout a centuries-old history in grapegrowing or bubbly-making. But, really, what we consider great craft Champagne is mostly a new phenomenon that arose in the last generation or two.
Take, for example, the stellar Champagne Doyard at the southern edge of the Côte des Blancs, in the premier cru village of Vertus.
The Doyard name is famous. Maurice Doyard, co-founder of the Champagne appellation’s governing body, created the small estate label Doyard-Collard nearly a century ago.
Today, the estate has a culture of careful attention to all the details. But that took off only after Maurice’s 20-year-old grandson Yannick Doyard arrived at the estate in 1979. That legacy has grown in the hands of Yannick’s sons.
“All the quality side of the estate was started by my father,” says Yannick’s youngest son, Guillaume, 37, who now runs the estate.
Creating New Cuvées
Doyard is emblematic of the 21st-century wave of innovative boutique Champagne producers that combine modern, precise winemaking with once-waning traditions (like horse plowing, fermentations in wood casks and long aging) for delicious results.
Yannick’s big moves began in the 1990s when he stopped using pesticides and herbicides in the vineyards and adopted sustainable agriculture; at the same time, he cut yields to get riper fruit. In the winery, he moved to gentler pressings, fermentations in used Burgundy barrels and bottle aging at least four years on lees.
In those years, he created the estate’s top-selling Champagne, using three vintages of Chardonnay from Vertus. The Vendémiaire Brut remains remarkably ripe, creamy, and complex—especially for a non-vintage flagship cuvée. (The 2024 release scored 92 points and costs $70).
In 2007, Yannick was joined by his eldest son, Charles. The two upped Doyard’s game by exploring their muses and niches of higher quality.
First, Yannick sold his interest in a wine estate he’d bought with his brother in Bordeaux’s Côtes de Castillon and used the proceeds to buy vineyards in grand cru villages of the Côtes des Blancs for Chardonnay and Montagne de Reims for Pinot Noir.
The following harvest, in 2008, was exceptionally good, bringing forth not only beautiful fruit but an explosion of Doyard creativity.
In that year, Yannick and Charles isolated a chalky plot of less than one acre that was planted behind the winery in 1956. Meticulously working the plot by hand and horse plowing it, they harvested the first vintage of Clos de l’Abbaye Extra Brut, a typically delicate, aromatic cuvée marked by its genetic mix.
“The clos has about 15 percent of a genetic mutation of Chardonnay called Chardonnay Muscaté,” explains Guillaume. “It’s a mutation from a time when there were not clones and it gives a different expression in the wines.”
In that same vintage, the Doyards produced another elite vintage Champagne, “Les Lumières”—their ultimate, spare-no-cost blend of the estate’s best grand cru Chardonnay and Pinot Noir vineyards. Vinified in barrel and released after 10 years of bottle aging, the 60-case cuvée has only been made in three great vintages since.
And that wasn’t all for 2008. Following 10 years of research and experimentation, Yannick launched his romantic dream of a great 18th-century Champagne. Called “Cuvée La Libertine,” it blended five early-1990s vintages of Chardonnay aged 12 years on lees.
It is a surprising wine: In keeping with the taste preferences of that era, it is far sweeter than any other modern Champagne, with about half the bubbles. And yet, perhaps because of all that aging, it remains lithe and elegant on the palate. Doyard releases about 33 cases per year: Each cork is trussed to the bottle with string, and each bottle comes in a box modeled after a church confessional.
Innovation and Tragedy
Charles, focused on specific terroirs, launched his own innovations, like the bone-dry, no-dosage, non-vintage cuvée called Revolution, blending three vintages from his favorite Chardonnay sites.
He took over the domaine in 2013, and in 2015 revived the still, barrel-fermented, single-vineyard, white wine En Vieux Fombrés, which Yannick had made only once, in 1996.
The following year, he harvested for a pair of new blanc de blancs, extra brut crus: Voie d’Oger, from Avize and marked by length and minerality, and Mont Ferrés, from Vertus and emphasizing rich fruit character.
With the former vinified in oak barrels and the latter in stainless steel, both wines got extended aging and were made for long aging after release. When laid down for secondary fermentation and aging in bottles, both wines were closed with corks rather than metal crown caps—a technique that brings more Sherry-like oxidative notes to the finished wines. The wines from that first vintage, 2016, were released in January 2024.
But Charles never saw the project come to fruition. In August 2017, on a family vacation in the Alps, he died of a fluke heart attack at 31 years old.
The New Leader
Guillaume was then nearly 30, growing his own hospitality enterprise in Épernay, which he hurriedly sold to help his father run the estate.
“Emotionally, it was a difficult time,” says Guillaume.
The technical aspect of his learning curve was the easy part. “I was always immersed in Champagne,” he muses. “But my talent is knowing how to surround myself well with a great team.”
For two years, Yannick showed him the ropes. Then he transferred management of the estate to a son for the second time in less than a decade.
Guillaume is now at ease running the estate, which has 25 acres of vineyards and produces up to 5,000 cases a year. He has carefully preserved the wine legacies of his father and brother, while introducing some innovations of his own.
In 2020, he made the estate’s first still red wine: a lively, elegant Côteaux Champenois from estate Pinot Noir vineyards in Aÿ. Called “Ay Rouge,” the wine is packed full of red fruit flavors, and about 100 cases are produced each vintage.
“Champagne, we have in our genes, ça va,” he says. “But red wine was never made at the estate. The idea was to have a challenge.”
A challenge? This spirit is the best part of the modern Champagne scene: a generation that can pay the bills, but looks for more.
“Maybe,” he then reflects, “it’s also a bit in our DNA to never take anything for granted. To always try to do something better or differently.”
