Benoît Marguet is one of those people whose care and purposefulness is evident immediately just in the way he moves. His cellar has a pulse to it, every object in the winemaking process right there in its right place. He stacks the barrels in threes—"The triangle is the perfect shape," he explains, "And the wines only like to be a certain distance from the floor, and I need them to be happy!” Benoît inherited some incredible holdings from his family. Their vineyards were the spine of Krug’s Grande Cuvee for quite a long time until, in 2005, Benoît decided to begin making his own wines from the grapes under the Marguet name.

One of the most special things about Benoît’s vineyards is that no chemicals were ever used on the land nor was the land ever plowed with a mechanical device. Still, Benoit’s two horses, Belle and Urban, plow the vine rows. Benoît converted the vines to full biodynamics under his care. He is so serious about the expression of his practices that when he shares vineyard boundaries with other producers, he will sell off the nearer rows to the other producers so that their methods don’t bleed into his wines.

In the winery everything is moved with gravity. The press is very high, at 15 feet, so that it can flow down into the tank and then from the tank into the barrels. These are Champagnes meeting in the perfect middle of originality and a deep reverence of tradition.