At A Glance
- Field
- Detail
- Place
- Rilly-La-Montagne, Montagne de Reims
- Vineyard holding
- 12 hectares in Premier Cru and Grand Cru villages
- Current operators
- Agnès and Patrick Manceaux
- House style
- Balanced, with fine character
- Defining practice
- Composition of vineyard sites, grape varieties and reserve wines
The Producer
Patrick Manceaux farms the family vineyards around Rilly-La-Montagne, while Agnès and Patrick Manceaux operate the house today. Champagne Roger Manceaux is a fourth generation family producer with holdings in Premier Cru and Grand Cru villages.
The wines are composed from different vineyard sites, grape varieties and reserve wines. Reserve wines are older base wines held back from earlier harvests, used in Champagne to add continuity and depth to non vintage cuvées. The house describes its style as balanced, with fine character.
Place
Rilly-La-Montagne lies in the Montagne de Reims, and the vineyards extend across Premier Cru and Grand Cru villages in and around the village. Premier Cru and Grand Cru are Champagne vineyard classifications, so the range brings together different levels of vineyard status within one family house.
The wines also draw on the wider material of those holdings. Vineyard sites, grape varieties and reserve wines are composed together in the cuvées, linking the village base to a broader Champagne range.
Wines
The range includes Grand Cru Extra Brut, a sparkling Champagne whose Extra Brut designation indicates low dosage. Dosage is the small addition of wine and sugar made after disgorgement, and a low dosage leaves the finished wine dry.
The house also works with reserve wines. In Champagne, reserve wines broaden a non vintage cuvée by adding base wines from earlier harvests, while vintage wines come from one stated year. This gives the range two clear forms of expression, blended continuity and dated release.
In The Glass
The house's stated style is balanced, with fine character. Its blending work brings vineyard sites, grape varieties and reserve wines into the same cuvées, while the Extra Brut bottle belongs to the driest end of the Brut sweetness scale.
Low dosage leaves less sweetness after disgorgement, allowing acidity and mousse to carry the palate more directly. Reserve wines can add breadth and layered flavor to a non vintage Champagne, while a vintage bottling places the character of one harvest at the centre of the wine.
A Bottle To Understand It
Grand Cru Extra Brut is the bottle to open first. Grand Cru identifies the highest vineyard classification in Champagne, while Extra Brut indicates a low dosage and a dry finish. The name puts vineyard status and sweetness level together, then connects to the house's practice of composing sites, grape varieties and reserve wines.
Final Word
Champagne Roger Manceaux is a fourth generation family house in Rilly-La-Montagne, with Premier Cru and Grand Cru vineyards and cuvées built from vineyard sites, grape varieties and reserve wines.