A French word with no true English equivalent, it broadly encompasses all the environmental factors that give a wine its distinct character and provenance.
If you look back to the 5th Century A. D and the very origins of vine cultivation in the Champagne region, even the Romans knew to look for calcium-rich soils. Understanding soil means understanding time — what came first, and what sits above it.
Ninety million years ago, the Champagne region was completely underwater. Centered around Paris, a basin formed which began to sink in the middle, pushing up its edges and exposing the layers of deposits beneath.
The further from the centre of the depression, the older those deposits were; Alsace and Burgundy, Metz and Dijon lie largely on Jurassic soils from between and millions years ago. Champagne, though, closer to the centre of the depression, sits on soils between about 40 and million years of age. Dating to around million years ago, the Kimmeridgian limestone bedrock here is the same as that found in Chablis and Sancerre. With some of the fertility of clay, but also with useful drainage and water-holding capacity, the soils here help produce a fleshier, fruitier kind of Pinot Noir than is seen on the chalky sites of the Montagne de Reims.
Out of it, though, pops the outcrops of Turonian chalk of Montgueux and the Vitryat , dating to 90 to 93 millions years ago in the Upper Cretaceous Period. Heading further north we start to hit the heart of Champagne — the famous chalks of the Campanian stage of the Upper Cretaceous.
