Leclere Minard

Clément Leclere is based in Coulomme la Montagne. After working for Julien Guillot and David Léclapart (no mean feat!), Clément decided to take over a few hectares of family vineyards in the heart of the Montagne de Reims. The first obvious choice was to grow his vines organically, even though the first vintage gave him a hard time and forced him to postpone his conversion for a year. He grows Pinot Meunier, Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. Clément Leclere joined the Coulomme cooperative. For him, as for other winegrowers in the village, it's a question of going back to the basics of champagne cooperatives. The idea is not to mix grapes from different producers, but to pool the tools needed to make wines that are unique to each cooperative member. As a result, Clément benefits from a more than comfortable environment in which to make his wine. Trained at a good school, Clément carefully selects the press fractions from his juices, then lets them ferment with indigenous yeasts. The wine is then matured in oak barrels, both for the vins clairs and for the coteaux champenois.Today, Clément's work is closely watched by connoisseurs of winegrowers' champagnes, and it's easy to see why on tasting...