Champagne Roger Coulon has produced Champagnes in Vrigny, in the Montagne de Reims since 1806. Eric and Isabelle Coulon and their children Edgar and Louise are the owners of this 10.8ha estate, which counts over 100 well-selected parcels of older vines (averaging a positively geriatric – for Champagne – 38 years old) spread across the Petite Montagne premier cru villages of Vrigny, Coulommes-la-Montagne, Pargny-les-Reims and Villers-Allerand. Most of the vines are found mid-slope, exposed to the east, with soils varying from pure limestone chalk to deep sand over clay. Pinot Meunier, being suited to these sandier soils, is the historically dominant grape variety of Vrigny. Having lost his father early, Eric Coulon learned the job with his grandfather, who had always stayed true to ancestral methods of champagne growing. Working alongside his father Eric, Edgar, who previously worked for renowned Wine Source winemaker Philippe Pacalet in Burgundy, has brought his experience to help to create these wines of exceptional precision, expression and vinosity. Coulon is one of only six growers in the elite Trait d’Union, a collective of producers committed to expressing terroir and working as naturally as possible.

Their agroforestry project, just three years old, is already an incredible pursuit, a whole way of being, much more than producing grapes in the most right-on way possible. The family are slowly reducing the work they do on the soil, to avoid killing this fauna and flora: treatment doses are gradually being limited and during the winter period they graze the land with sheep whose impact is so much lighter on the land. This viticulture aims within a few years to obtain an autonomous vine that draws these resources directly from the soil without bringing external elements.