Unit price: HUF 36 667 / litre. Our prices are gross prices.
To generalise, one might say that at a classic champagne house, visitors are greeted by opulent spaces, elegant staff and manicured English gardens — while at a grower’s estate, you’re immediately seated around the family table or tasting from an upturned barrel with the winemaker themselves. Yet generalisations falter here, because even in Champagne, exceptions exist — Vilmart being the prime example.
We first visited the estate in 2019. Though we knew we were arriving at one of the region’s most authentic grower-producers, stepping into the courtyard revealed something unexpected: the patina and elegance of the half-timbered building spoke an entirely different language. These very values resonate in every bottle of Vilmart Champagne.
Their approach and style remain decidedly classic — Laurent Champs makes no attempt to shy away from Champagne’s prestige, and his bottles are every bit as coveted as those from the grandes marques. Luxury and elegance are as much a part of this story as local grape varieties and subtle bubbles. Yet what truly drives this estate is a grower's heart — working exclusively with their own grapes, employing unique methods and maintaining exceptionally high standards. Profound flavours, remarkable maturity, precise and vibrant acidity, brilliant luminosity, with a slow and luxurious mousse.
Every base wine undergoes barrel fermentation, and unlike conventional practice, they preserve, rather than ferment out, the must's natural malic acidity, transferring it intact into the wine. These are two fundamental techniques that few master as completely as Vilmart.
Vilmart's most renowned wine, in which the house style finds its purest and most powerful expression.
The style of the cult Champagne estate is entirely unique, and it goes back to old methods: all base wines are fermented in oak barrels, and contrary to the usual way, they don’t carry out malolactic fermentation, but they lift it into the wine.