Based in Colombé-la-Fosse in theAube department, Laurent Courtillier and his team welcome you to their champagne cellar to discover all our fine bottles. Don’t hesitate to contact us to book your visit and enjoy a memorable champagne tasting.
Discover our champagne cellar
Want to see champagne production for yourself? Come and visit us to discover our working methods and our cellar. Laurent Courtillier ‘s team will welcome you in a warm atmosphere to help you better understand our know-how.
Of course, the tour ends with a champagne tasting to give you a true appreciation of our work.
The different stages in the production of our champagnes
To produce quality champagnes, we diligently follow a number of different stages. By controlling our production from A to Z, we can monitor the quality of our champagne at all times.
Find out more about our different production stages:
Pressing: carefully transported grapes are pressed immediately after picking, whole so as to avoid coloring the juice (these are grapes with black skins).
- Blending: In Champagne, there are 3 different grape varieties: pinot noir, meunier and chardonnay. The blending of these grape varieties creates harmonious wines of consistent taste and quality. The proportion of each of these grape varieties is left to the discretion of the winemaker for the production of his cuvées.
- Bottling (tirage) and the birth of effervescence: effervescence is the result of the second fermentation in the bottle, while prise de mousse is the result of adding sugar and yeast when the wine is bottled. The yeasts consume the sugar, releasing alcohol and carbon dioxide into the wine… A few weeks later, thousands of bubbles are imprisoned in a bottle that you may be able to taste… But you’ll have to be patient, as legislation requires that the wine be aged for a minimum of 15 months in the cellar. In reality, however, the duration is often longer (3 or 4 years).
- Riddling and disgorging: the yeast deposits from fermentation are stirred up and transported to the neck of the bottle. By freezing the neck, the deposit is expelled.
- Dosage: is the final touch given to the wine, the addition of liqueur de dosage (the quantity added is intended to soften the sugar-free wine at the end of fermentation) just before the bottle is finally corked and wired.
Champagne production in the purest Champagne tradition
Champagne is a region renowned for the production of top-quality sparkling wines, known as Champagne. Champagne production is regulated by strict legislation, ensuring that only wines produced in this region can be called champagne.
Champagne production begins with grape selection. The grapes used to produce Champagne must be grown in the Champagne region and meet strict quality standards. The grapes are then pressed to extract the juice, which is fermented to produce base wine.
The base wine is then blended according to the desired characteristics of the final champagne. Blends can be composed of different grape varieties and come from different vineyard plots. The wines are then bottled with a sugar solution and yeast, triggering a second fermentation in the bottle that creates champagne‘s emblematic bubbles.
Once fermentation in the bottle is complete, champagne must age on its lees for at least 15 months for non-millésimés and three years for millésimés. This stage allows the aromas and flavors to develop and evolve.
Finally, the champagne is disgorged to remove the lees and replaced by an expedition liqueur, which defines the sugar level and character of the final champagne. The Champagne is then corked and ready to be enjoyed.
At Laurent Courtillier, we are proud to perpetuate Champagne traditions by producing champagnes of exceptional quality. We carefully select our grapes and use traditional winemaking techniques to ensure that every bottle of champagne we produce is a true masterpiece.
Visit our champagne cellar in Aube
The Champagne region is world-famous for its production of top-quality sparkling wines. Located in northeastern France, the Champagne region is characterized by a cool climate and limestone soils, ideal for growing high-quality grapes.
The region’s winemakers have developed specific viticultural practices to make the most of these conditions, particularly in terms of vine pruning, soil management and grape selection. Laurent Courtillier and his sons Maxime and Théo’s domaine on the Côte de Bar in theAube region of France produces champagnes that will leave you breathless.
Our champagnes to find in our cellar
For many years, we have been working to produce top-quality champagnes to suit every taste and every desire. Made from three grape varieties (Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Pinot Meunier), our champagnes rest for several years in our cellar to ensure ideal ageing.
Discover our different champagnes produced in our estate and to taste in our cellar located in Colombé-la-Fosse inAube:
- Tradition Brut
- Tradition Demi-Sec
- Tradition Brut Nature
- Tradition Brut Rosé
- Prestige
- Blanc de Blancs 100% Chardonnay
- Blanc de Noirs
- Vintage 2015 and 2018
- Champagne Ratafia
Enjoy a memorable tasting of our champagnes
At Laurent Courtillier, we believe that tasting our champagnes is a unique and memorable experience. Every bottle of champagne we produce is the result of rigorous, traditional winemaking techniques.
When you taste one of our champagnes, we invite you to take the time to appreciate its color and bubbles. We produce champagnes to suit all tastes, to be enjoyed at any time of the meal.
We recommend serving our champagnes chilled, at a temperature of between 8 and 10 degrees Celsius, and enjoying them in elegant flutes to enhance their color and bubbles. We also encourage you to explore our range of champagnes, including vintages and special cuvées, to discover the diversity and complexity of our wines.
We hope you enjoy every sip of our champagnes, and we look forward to welcoming you to our cellar for an in-person tasting.
Complete control over the entire production of our champagnes
We are proud to control every stage in the production of our champagnes, from grape selection to bottling. We are convinced that this mastery enables us to produce exceptional champagnes and to guarantee the quality of every bottle we produce.
We begin by carefully selecting the grapes we use to produce our champagnes. We grow only Pinot Noir, Pinot Meunier and Chardonnay grapes on the Côte de Bar in theAube region.
We then use traditional winemaking methods to transform these grapes into a base wine. We use precise blends to create complex, balanced flavors in every bottle of champagne we produce.
We then leave our champagnes to age on the lees for a specific period of time to allow the flavors and aromas to develop and harmonize. This stage is crucial to the quality of our champagnes.
Finally, we disgorge each bottle by hand and replace it with a carefully selected liqueur d’expédition to create the unique character of each champagne.