The Coquard Press & the Prodigal Son

The story of Champagne Bourgeois-Diaz begins in Crouttes-sur-Marne, a village in the Vallée de la Marne — one of the five historic growing regions of Champagne, located northwest of Épernay and defined by the river that gives it its name. The Bourgeois family has deep roots here, tending vines for four generations. Jérôme Bourgeois-Diaz was born in 1977, the son of a champagne-growing father and a mother with Spanish ancestry — a dual heritage that Jérôme credits with compelling him to pursue a different path from his contemporaries. As a young man, he had no intention of returning to the vines. He found the work boring, wanted a life in trade, and ended up working for an industrial supply company in Niort, far from the Marne.

The turning point came when his mother began producing her own bottles from the family's grapes — a decision that stirred Jérôme's curiosity and, like the prodigal son, drew him back home. He began training as a viticulturist-oenologist, and in 2001 he took over the reins of the domaine. His first vintage was, by his own admission, a crash test: the musts struggled to reach 8.5 degrees of potential alcohol. But two mentors helped him find his way: René Duclos, a wine merchant from Val d'Oise who encouraged him to push his approach further; and Pierre Masson, the renowned French biodynamic specialist whose teachings transformed Jérôme's understanding of viticulture.

Jérôme began experimenting with organic farming, then fell completely under the spell of biodynamics. He converted the estate in 2009 and received Demeter certification in 2015 — a rigorous standard that prohibits herbicides, fungicides, pesticides, and all synthetic inputs. In 2016, his wife Charlotte joined the business, bringing critical oversight to the brand and ensuring that the champagnes taste the way they should. Together, they represent a modern, collaborative partnership: Jérôme in the vineyard and cellar, Charlotte in the market and the glass.

The Bourgeois-Diaz philosophy is one of making wine the hard way. Jérôme takes pride in doing what others avoid: hand-harvesting according to the lunar calendar, operating a traditional Coquard press that requires three people, using the laborious retrousse technique, and farming biodynamically in a valley where humidity from the Marne makes mold and rot a constant threat. His vineyards stand out in the patchwork of Crouttes-sur-Marne — an oasis of green, wild plants, and biodiversity in an otherwise conventionally farmed landscape. As one importer noted, his practices are "easily the most old-school approach to viticulture in the region that we know of."

The winemaking philosophy at Champagne Bourgeois-Diaz is governed by a commitment to doing things the hard way — a principle that extends from the vineyard into the cellar with unusual consistency. Jérôme's pride and joy is his traditional Coquard press, manufactured by a company that has been making them since 1924. Using this machine is incredibly labor-intensive: it requires three people working at all times, carefully rearranging the grapes after every couple of pressings in a technique called retrousse. It is a slow process, but one that Jérôme deems absolutely necessary for the gentle extraction of grape juice. In an age of pneumatic presses and automated harvesters, the Coquard is a statement of intent — a refusal to sacrifice quality for convenience.

All wines are fermented with indigenous yeasts — no commercial inoculation, no enzymatic correction, no chaptalisation. The base wines are vinified in a combination of stainless steel tanks and neutral oak barrels — approximately 35% in oak, depending on the cuvée. All grapes are fermented separately by parcel and variety, then blended before bottling according to Jérôme's vision for each champagne. This parcel-by-parcel approach allows him to capture the specific character of each site — the 50-year-old Meunier in clay-limestone, the 1960s Pinot Noir in sandy clay, the Chardonnay in calcareous marl — and to assemble blends of extraordinary precision and complexity.

The ageing programme is deliberate and proportionate. The entry-level cuvées spend an average of 24 months on the lees — already above the minimum required for Champagne. The Collection wines see 36 to 48 months of lees ageing, developing the broad, layered, biscuit-and-brioche complexity that distinguishes the best grower champagnes. The most serious single-vineyard cuvées — Les Justices and Les Bien Aimées — are aged under cork rather than crown cap, and tied after disgorging, a traditional method that Jérôme believes contributes to finer bubble integration and more elegant texture. The estate produces around 30,000 bottles annually — a modest output that allows Jérôme to maintain hands-on control over every stage.

The finishing practices reflect the estate's biodynamic and natural ethos. Sulfur is eschewed unless absolutely necessary; when used, it is natural sulfur added at crush time only. There is no synthetic sulfur, no chemical stabilisers, no filtration, no fining. Dosages are minimal — between 0 and 4 grams per litre, with most cuvées bottled as brut nature or extra brut. Jérôme asserts the terroir imprint above all else, and the wines show amazing finesse and purity, with an ultra-fine mousse that is the hallmark of gentle pressing and patient lees ageing. The result is a portfolio of champagnes that are simultaneously powerful and delicate — rooted to the ground, yet reaching for the stars.

To understand Champagne Bourgeois-Diaz, one must understand the concept of the biodynamic grower — a viticultural identity that is still rare in Champagne, a region dominated by large houses, purchased grapes, and industrial scale. Jérôme Bourgeois-Diaz is not merely a vigneron who farms organically; he is a convinced biodynamist, a winemaker-gardener, and a poet when he has time. His work is an ode to nature and its mysteries — a philosophy that extends from the lunar calendar in the vineyard to the sandstone egg in the cellar, from the herbal tea sprayed on the vines to the zero dosage in the bottle. In a region where conventional methods are the easy way, Jérôme has chosen the hard way, and the results have made him one of the most compelling producers in the Vallée de la Marne.

The Meunier evangelist identity that Jérôme has established is equally distinctive. In a region that has historically treated Pinot Meunier as the poor cousin of the Champagne trilogy — less prestigious than Chardonnay, less structured than Pinot Noir — Jérôme has built his reputation on the variety. His BD'M, a 100% Meunier from old vines in clay and limestone, is one of the most celebrated cuvées in the natural Champagne movement. He has proven that Meunier, when farmed biodynamically, selected from appropriate parcels, and handled with sensitivity, can deliver complexity, weight, minerality, acidity, finesse, and elegance. This is not merely a commercial niche; it is a vindication of a grape that has been underestimated for generations, and it has placed Bourgeois-Diaz at the forefront of the Meunier revival.

The future of Champagne Bourgeois-Diaz is tied to the deepening of Jérôme and Charlotte's relationship with their Marne Valley terroir — the continued biodynamic cultivation of their 6.5 hectares, the refinement of their sandstone egg and under-cork ageing programmes, the development of new single-vineyard cuvées that explore the specific character of Crouttes-sur-Marne, Nanteuil-sur-Marne, and Villiers-Saint-Denis, and the strengthening of their position in global markets as ambassadors for grower Champagne at its most principled. The estate will remain small — 30,000 bottles, hand-harvested, Coquard-pressed, three-person operated — because scale is not the goal; sincerity is. The BD'3C will continue to offer the classic, balanced expression of the house style. The BD'M will continue to carry the banner of Meunier excellence. The Collection wines will continue to demonstrate the heights that extended lees ageing can achieve. And the experimental cuvées — Les Justices, Les Bien Aimées, and whatever Jérôme dreams up next — will continue to test the boundaries of what grower Champagne can be.

In an age of industrial Champagne production, of purchased grapes and marketing-driven luxury, Champagne Bourgeois-Diaz stands as a compelling alternative — not because it rejects tradition but because it has embraced a different tradition, one that values biodynamic horse-ploughing over chemical convenience, the Coquard press over the pneumatic machine, the retrousse over automation, indigenous yeasts over laboratory inoculation, zero dosage over sugary standardisation, under-cork ageing over crown-cap efficiency, and the specific voice of Crouttes-sur-Marne over the homogenised house style of the grandes marques. Jérôme and Charlotte Bourgeois-Diaz are not merely making Champagne; they are making an argument — for the grower, for the Meunier, for the lunar calendar, for the three-person press, and for the possibility that a 6.5-hectare family estate on the banks of the Marne can produce wines that are as authentic, as alive, and as necessary as anything from the world's most celebrated cellars. The 1924 press, the 2001 return, the 2009 conversion, the 2015 Demeter certification, the 2016 partnership, the zero dosage, the 986 bottles of Les Justices, and the name that has meant biodynamic grower Champagne in Crouttes-sur-Marne for a new generation: all united in one bottle, one estate, one unanswerable argument for the future of the Vallée de la Marne.