Meunier: Champagne’s Icarus Grape?

The Meunier variety is the Champagne region’s lesser-revered but no less important grape, compared to the more celebrated Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. The three varieties together make up over 99.5% of the grapes grown in the region. Nick Breeze investigates. The often-called ‘filler’ grape variety suffered an image problem until about a decade ago when the principal growers who have worked with it for generations in the Marne Valley, decided to band together and rewrite Meunier’s story. I first attended the Meunier Institute tasting in 2016 when it was an out-of-town satellite of Printemps de Champagne, or ‘Springtime in Champagne’, held in Reims. This is the annual week-long series of tastings that attracts hundreds of professionals to the city to gauge the quality of the previous years vin clairs – the still wines that will eventually be transformed into sparkling cuvées – and a wide selection of what the grower producers are offering in both sparkling and still wines. Outside of the Champagne region, where the remaining 20% of the variety is grown, it is more generally called Pinot Meunier but in Champagne, the prenom is dropped. This blanket omission of the Pinot heritage is adopted across the region. Discussing this reminded me of my interview with writer, Michael Edwards, back in 2016 when he said, “People think it is like Pinot Noir but it isn’t. It is a different grape. I don’t think it should be called Pinot Meunier. It should just be called Meunier!” Speaking to wine