Champagne Eric Rodez
Ignoring trends since 1984, Eric tends his vineyards in organic and biodynamic viticulture, famously using aromatherapy on his 6 hectares in Ambonnay Grand Cru. While there is a myriad of rising stars in the region producing great Champagnes, Eric has been a pioneer in more ways than one, he is an Iconic grower that inspired the new generation.
From his time studying in Burgundy, he brought barrel ageing back to his family cellars in the early 80s and mastered his craft at Champagne Krug with Henri Krug for 2 years. Back home in Ambonnay, the notably disastrous 1984 vintage throw a tsunami wave at Eric, which lead him to start a soil revolution in his vineyards.
The vineyards and the respect of the environment is the number one priority at Champagne Eric Rodez. They are lucky custodians of some of the most prestigious plots in Champagne and Ambonnay alone. It is their duty to take care of them, listeningto every season, using all natural tricks to grow healthy grapes, being curious and using their sensibility to achieve the highest quality. His son Michael and daughter in law Aurelie are now assuming pivoting roles in both vineyards and cellars under his guidance.
The 2024 release marks a fresh start for Champagne Eric Rodez, with the new labels showing the Edition Number. A new way to help all trade professionals, collectors, and consumers to better identify his “Vins d’Auteur” range year after year, The appearance of the Edition number on the label will offer better traceability and visibility in the market.
Champagne d’Auteur
Champagne d’Auteur (Magnums)
Lieux Dits
Arrestingly pure and focused, the east-facing exposition of the parcel is detectable bringing an amazing tension in a vintage defined by warmth and generous ripeness.
The early harvest noted here is therefore significant: Rodez picked, preserving the acidity. This is pure Ambonnay Chardonnay terroir, uncompromised.
The warmth of the vintage and the maturation in barrels add just a supporting layers of complexity.
Les Beurys is one of Éric Rodez's most prized single vineyards. The easterly-facing exposition, shared with La Pierre aux Larrons, favours a cooler, longer ripening period.
The 2019 growing season was warm and dry across Champagne, delivering generous natural ripeness and healthy, thick-skinned Pinot Noir. For a Blanc de Noirs of this ambition — no malolactic, no blending, no dosage cushion — the vintage's fruit concentration is what makes the austerity of the uncompromised vinification exceptional. In the single vineyard collection, Les Beurys always shines for its finesse and deeper spinal core that draws you into its vortex. Despite ageing in oak barrels and extended time on the lees, it always retains the primary fruit element — absolutely mesmerising.
Precise, tensile, and strikingly mineral — the 93% chalk soils of Ambonnay, the highest chalk concentration in all of Champagne, speak with extraordinary clarity here. The 75% blocked malolactic fermentation preserves a vibrant, focused acidity that gives the wine its characteristic backbone and energy. The 2020 vintage, forming the largest single component at 31%, provides generous mid-palate weight and ripe stone fruit, beautifully counterbalanced by the leaner, more citrus-driven 2021 and the bright, fresh lift of 2022. The palate is creamy yet taut, rich yet precise — a seamless harmony of depth and tension that is the hallmark of Rodez's Blanc de Blancs style.
Deeply expressive from the outset — the vinification in old oak delivers a complex oxidative undertow of toasted nuts and beeswax, while the Chardonnay's natural acidity keeps the aromatics fresh and precise. The Ambonnay terroir shines in the chalky, mineral undercurrent that runs through the ripe orchard fruit. The multi-vintage structure creates a wine of impressive layered complexity. Pinot Noir delivers body, presence and a silky mid-palate richness, while the Chardonnay provides precision and length. The 2g/l dosage is almost ascetic, laser-focused, vibrating with tension, yet perfectly balanced by the generous phenolic ripeness derived from barrel work. The finish lingers with a persistent saline, chalky mineral resonance.
Ratafia is Champagne's traditional mistelle — freshly pressed grape juice (moût) whose fermentation is stopped by the addition of grape spirit, typically to around 17–20% ABV. The result is a fortified, naturally sweet vin de liqueur with full fruit character preserved intact by the alcohol. Long made by growers for their own tables, it was awarded its own Champagne appellation in 2015
Rodez's approach to Ratafia is categorically different, as you would expect from this man. Made solely from Ambonnay Pinot Noir and by running a solera from 2015 to 2020. He has created a wine of layered complexity. The result is a wine that is simultaneously aged and alive — a Ratafia with the structural ambition of a great Banyuls or Maury, yet with the unmistakable chalk-mineral identity of Ambonnay Grand Cru beneath it.
If you like tawny port or Colheita, this is on for you. Deep, lustrous amber colour, with notes of medjool dates, dried figs, muscovado and hazelnut. No doubt it will be enchanting every cheese board.
One of the most distinctive rosé Champagnes being made today. Rodez's macération technique is a statement here — combined with deep reserve wine complexity and near-total barrel vinification — produces something closer in spirit to a fine Burgundian rosé than a conventional Champagne. Edition 38's is Structured and serious with exceptional reserve wine depth (57% from 2019 and earlier) makes it a wine of genuine gravitas. For those who find most rosé Champagne too light, this is the answer.
The same parcel. A completely different wine. Les Beurys en Macération takes the identical Les Beurys plot, the same vintage fruit and the same zero-malolactic, 100% barrel philosophy as its white counterpart — and adds two days of skin contact. Those 48 hours change everything: colour, tannin, aromatic register, texture and ageing trajectory are all transformed. This is Rodez at his most experimental and most revealing. Deeper than the Macération Rosé in the Champagne d'Auteur range, this has become one of Champagne's greatest macération wines and a benchmark for many. It is unapologetically bold and seductive in its finesse at the same time.
The winning combination lies in the vineyard choice and preserving freshness through no malo and an uncompromised vinification.
A very accomplished, very moreish Champagne
Cuvée des Grands Vintages is Rodez's most uncompromising statement, a Champagne at its most vinous and contemplative. The six years on lees have transformed what was already a deeply structured blend into something of profound complexity. The selection of wine in its composition is made to stand time and ability to age. The vintage backbone is exceptional. The 2016–2018 triumvirate is a fortunate one: 2016 brought freshness and precise, cutting acidity; 2017 provided warm, concentrated ripeness; and 2018 — one of the great Champagne vintages of recent decades — adds density and structure. With 29% reserve wines behind them, the assemblage has extraordinary depth. To keep or to drink the choice is entirely yours.
This wants serious food: roasted Bresse chicken, aged Comté, white truffle dishes, lobster thermidor, or a côte de veau. It would be a shame to drink it as an aperitif.
