Gonet-Medeville Champagne Blanc de Noirs NV

This weekend I headed to Champagne once again – vicariously, I mean – through the wines of Gonet-Medeville. It serves as a nice antidote to all the 2025 Bordeaux notes which are currently cascading onto the Winedoctor site. As it turns out, however, I did not entirely leave the world of Bordeaux behind with this particular bottle – I knew there was something familiar about the name Gonet-Medeville.

Like the recently featured Champagne Thiénot, Gonet-Medeville is another young Champagne house. Even younger in fact – Alain Thiénot set up shop in 1985, but Gonet-Medeville only saw the day in 2000, when it was founded by husband-and-wife team Xavier Gonet and Julie Médeville.

Gonet is a well-known name in the Champagne region, with both Philippe Gonet and Michel Gonnet having operated as récoltant-manipulants (growers who make Champagne exclusively from their own ‘home grown’ grapes) for many years. Xavier Gonet hails from a different branch of the same family. In 1996 he met Julie Médeville, which is where we find the Bordeaux connection; the Médeville family have long tended vineyards south of the city of Bordeaux, with an estate in Graves named Château Respide Médeville and a rather more renowned property in Sauternes, Château Gilette.

The couple were married the following year, and by 2000 Champagne Gonet-Medeville was born.

Gonet-Medeville operates from new facilities in Bisseuil, in Aÿ-Champagne, on the banks of the Marne. From here Xavier and Julie tend 12 hectares of vines, spread across several communes, including two grands crus on the Côte des Blancs, Oger and Les Mesnil-sur-Oger. The remainder of the vineyard is scattered around the Montagne de Reims and Vallée de Marne, with vines in the grands crus Ambonnay and Bouzy, and the premiers crus of Mareuil-sur-Aÿ, Trépail, Vaudemange, Billy-le-Grand and Bisseuil itself. This gives the house good sources of grand cru Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, supported by a wide range of premier cru fruit.

The portfolio is succinct, with no more than half a dozen cuvées (included a still Coteaux Champenois, if that interests you).

Among these is the Blanc de Noirs, a non-vintage cuvée. This particular bottle of the Gonet-Medeville Champagne Blanc de Noirs is 100% Pinot Noir, 90% of which was sourced from vines in Bisseuil, with just 10% from the more prestigious site in Ambonnay. It is largely based on the 2020 vintage, with 20% reserve wines in the blend, and it was bottled for the second fermentation in April 2021 and disgorged almost three years later in January 2024. The dosage is a rather light 4 g/l. The Blanc de Noirs denomination is clearly declared on the label although I had to double check, because in the glass this wine displays a confident salmon pink hue, so the skins have had more impact here than was perhaps originally intended. The aromatics are classic blanc de noirs (or should that be classic rosé?), with fresh strawberry, redcurrant and red apple scents, on a base of crushed chalk. It continues in a wonderfully bright and driven style on the palate, maintaining a dry low-dosage presence through middle, the tasty summer fruit character partnered with a creamy mousse and bright acidity, leading to a long and simmering finish. It is fresh, tart, juicy and entirely mouth-watering. All in all a cracking, strait-laced yet profoundly pink Champagne – even if it claims to be a Blanc de Noirs. The alcohol is 12.5% on the label. 93/100 (11/5/26)

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