Boërl&Kroff

Champagne Boërl & Kroff’s story began over 20 years ago.

A passion for beautiful bottles and a great friendship are at the origin of this champagne which became unique and unparalleled.

In the middle of the 1990s, Patrick Sabaté and Stéphane Sésé, friends since childhood, launched a major challenge: To create a champagne with a distinct aroma and with a complexity and intensity known only in the best wines of Burgundy and Pomerol.

The story begins in Aube, near Urville. Michel Drappier helps them rise to this challenge by offering the two childhood friends, the fruit of three high quality plots planted mainly with Pinots Noirs.

Patrick and Stéphane were eager for a champagne with a most distinct aromatic expression, with an unparalleled DNA, that would give them the same sensory astonishment that they had experienced upon first tasting the best red Bordeaux and Burgundy. The creators of the Boërl & Kroff Champagne emphasized the intense and subtle characteristics that are the strength of wines grown with patience.

Boërl & Kroff pushed the existing boundaries with the help of Michel Drappier to develop a champagne that is both balanced and powerful with a very unusual aromatic profile that greatly exceeded their expectations.

The first Boërl & Kroff magnum emerged in 1995.

An elixir that has become one of the greatest wines falling within a hedonistic approach.

A champagne recognised by the greatest experts...
Christie’s was right about recording Boërl & Kroff to its largest sales catalogue. Big wine enthusiasts quickly followed by turning the brand into a legend in the world of champagne with the highest auctions recorded in 2015.  Boërl & Kroff is appreciate from collectors, wine connoiseurs and now investors. 

From the beginning, Patrick Sabaté and Stéphane Sésé were in search of a Taste. They had the desire for a new sensory experience, unprecedented, different and unique. For that it was necessary to define this Taste, to write the score and find the conductor.

Smooth, onctuous and generous, an acidity specific to the finest wines, the Champagne Boërl & Kroff is composed by a palett of very complex flavors, rich and above all, an outstanding length in the mouth. Such a tiny bubble that we might forget sometime that we certainly taste one of the greatest wines from Champagne of all times. A wine that can envelop both the mouth and the mind and that lingers a very long time.

This challenge at first seemed counter-current or even unrealistic. This is when Michel Drappier, "the magician of Urville" intervenes and explains to Patrick Sabaté and Stéphane Sésé, that to achieve this it will be necessary to gather that which Champagne can produce better and to attempt the unprecedented.

Fifty years ago, a special vintage was born of these parcels planted mainly with pinots noirs. An “extra dry” wine for General De Gaulle, champagne aficionado who lived not far from Urville at Colombey-the-Deux-Eglises.
The wines that make up the Boërl & Kroff vintages come from three plots of approximately one hectare each, composed of old vines in the village of Urville. Pinot Noir is the dominant grape variety, followed by Chardonnay and Pinot Meunier.

For the development of Boërl & Kroff Champagne, only the equivalent of one hectare is used, and only the best grapes from the best clusters are selected.
The Boërl & Kroff vineyards are part of the sublime geography of Champagne.

Their rows, well aligned, make up an elegant and healthy landscape on sloping hillsides facing directly south.
The soils called “Calcosol” from the Kimmeridgian epoch are alternate layers of Barrois hard limestone and marl. The resulting soil is extremely calcareous and rich in clay. This composition offers the best conditions for development of grapes.

Drained soils, an incredible minerality, an exceptional terroir combine to create a singular and personal Champagne.
Boërl & Kroff Champagne are always pushing the existing boundaries furtherby working year after year only on the most beautiful vintages.

Nurtured with patience and wisdom, it often takes more than twelve years for Boërl & Kroff Champagne to increase in complexity and thus obtain the qualities that have made its reputation among connoisseurs on five continents.

Oenological choices favor particularly slow wine making, maturation and fermentation, allowing a parsimonious use of sulfur. The base rape has flowed naturally thanks to gravity, with no pumping. The juice comes exclusively from the first press
We specially value this technique for the elaboration of our Champagnes. It allows to use very low quantities of sulfites (three times under standard vinification). This very « natural » vinification, and the rare quality oak casks we use for part of the wines gives to our pinots a very beautiful copper-coloured aspect, close to last century's tradition.

The best parcels of Pinot Noir are managed using biodynamic principles and horse drawn traction is used for plowing the rows.
Boërl & Kroff Champagne makes it a point of honor to preserve, embellish and treat the plots throughout the year.

Boërl & Kroff Champagne is a generous wine, subtle and complex.

The delicacy and the particular identity of the great pinots noirs condition the purity of expression of Boërl & Kroff Champagnes.

The acidity brings freshness and balance and offers them an immense ageing potential, rare qualities reserved for the greatest wines of Champagne.

The uniqueness of this Champagne is the consequence of the technical choices that had to be made to respect the sensory objectives set by Patrick Sabaté and Stéphane Sésé.
 

It is a manual assembly of three vertical pieces composing the main body of the cork and two discs, thicker than the usual ones which are made to come in contact with the wine. This technic has strongly enhance the cork’s watertightness, allows a longer conservation as well as a slower and progressive evolution.

This technique carried out by hand is a real work of patience and marquetery desired by Patrick Sabaté as a tribute to his corker family. 

Since 1997, the vintages that do not fit into the criteria and standards of the great vintage make up a wine called “B de Boërl & Kroff”:http://www.champagne-b.com/
The Vintages 1999, 2001, and 2013 considered less qualitative, have not been used for the development of Boërl & Kroff Champagne.