Champagne Boizel launches single vineyard expressions

Champagne Boizel has launched two new single vineyard, single harvest, single varietal expressions as the maison draws attention to the top sites providing wines for its blends.

Both from the 2019 vintage, the Champagnes are a pure Pinot Noir from a grand cru vineyard in Tours-sur-Marne (pictured above) and a 100% Chardonnay from a premier cru plot in Villers-Marmery (pictured below).

Speaking to the drinks business in January about the latest expressions from the masion, CEO Florent Roques-Boizel said that the launches were part of an additional line-up to the Boizel Champagne range, which would continue to focus on blends over time and space.

“The best of Champagne is really about a blend, which is why our [presige cuvée] Joyau is a blend of grapes and premier and grand cru vineyards, but we are seeing more demand from Champagne lovers for mono crus, because they want to understand the components,” he told db,

While Boizel is launching the concept with two Champagnes from 2019, he said that he will be releasing a set of expressions from every subsequent harvest, highlighting different vineyards, with one to three cuvées in each vintage.

“We have made a mono-cru Champagne from every vintage since 2019, but not from the same terroir,” he said, noting that the expressions were priced between Boizel’s vintage (£65) and flagship, Joyau (approx. £110 UK retail).

As for the target market for the single-vineyard Champagnes, Florent believes he will recruit customers in the trade among the specialist wine merchants and bars in France, as well as “wherever there is a keen interest in the specifics of Champagne,” while he also hopes the new expressions will find homes among Boizel’s “strong base of private customers in France”.

Indeed, Boizel is unusual among major maisons in that its main sales channel in the domestic market is direct-to-consumer, with an online mailing list of regular buyers that amounts to around 20,000 people.

Speaking about this aspect to the house, Florent said that it was something his parents developed over many years, mirroring an approach to domestic sales more commonly taken by grower-bottlers in Champagne, as opposed to the maisons.

Meanwhile, commenting on last year’s sales performance, Florent said that Boizel had bucked the market trend.

While overall Champagne shipments were down just over 9%, Boizel had “a relatively good year; we grew a little bit in this difficult market,” he said.

Such a performance relates to “a lot of changes in the last two years at Boizel, with a new identify and the opening of new export markets,” according to Florent.

Other positive impacts on the producer’s sales have been “the French direct [to consumer] market, which has been quite good for us”, and, “a big change for us at the end of the year, when we started to work with Majestic as our exclusive importer in the UK.”

This move was implemented in October, and helped Boizel “have a good end of the year” in the UK.

As for other nations, Florent picked out South Korea, Thialand and Japan as areas of growth for Boizel, while, for this year, he is hopeful for expansion in Italy, having moved its distribution to Allegrini, which he believes will raise Boizel’s profile in high-end restaurants.

As a result of such a change in Italy, and the new tie-up with Majestic in the UK, Florent is forecasting further growth for Boizel in 2025.

While he acknowledges that there is still “a lot of uncertainty” in the world, he is “optimistic” for the wider global market for Champagne, both due to the fact that the distributors and retailers seemed to have reduced their stock levels, and because prices seem to be stabilising.

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