The vintage: when a Champagne tells the story of a year

12.06.2026

What is a vintage champagne?

A vintage champagne is crafted exclusively from grapes harvested in a single year. Unlike non-vintage cuvées, known as NV, which blend several harvest years to ensure consistency of taste, a vintage champagne embraces uniqueness. It captures the climatic signature of a given year, with its strengths, nuances, and sometimes its rough edges, and transcends them into an expression of Champagne that will be like no other. It is an accepted risk and a promise of something exceptional.

The rules of vintage Champagne

In Champagne, regulations strictly govern the production of vintage cuvées. For a champagne to display a vintage on its label, it must be composed of at least 85% grapes from that harvest year. The minimum aging period on lees is set at 36 months, compared to only 15 months for non-vintage cuvées. In practice, the major houses go well beyond these regulatory minimums. At Frerejean Frères, the decision to declare a vintage is never automatic: it only occurs when a year offers quality remarkable enough to deserve being preserved on its own, without dilution in a blend.

Vintage vs. Non-Vintage: two complementary philosophies

It would be reductive to pit vintage against non-vintage in terms of superiority. They are two complementary philosophies. Non-Vintage, like the Extra Brut Premier Cru from Frerejean Frères, is an exercise in blending and consistency: it expresses the house's constant style, its own distinct character, and its sensory signature, regardless of climatic fluctuations. Vintage, on the other hand, is an exercise in truth: it showcases the year in all its singularity. One provides reassurance, the other wonder. At Frerejean Frères, both approaches coexist and nourish one another.

How does the climate shape a vintage?

In Champagne, the climate is the primary winemaker. The region, located at the northern limit of global viticulture, lives to the rhythm of meteorological caprices: late springs, uncertain summers, risks of frost and hail, harvests under rain or sun. It is precisely this fragility that makes great vintages so precious. Each year that produces an exceptional champagne is a victory in connection with nature, which is found in the glass, year after year, decade after decade.

The key stages of a winegrowing year in Champagne

It all begins in winter, with the pruning of the vines, a precise task that determines the yield and quality of the future harvest. Spring brings the fear of frost, a dreaded enemy of the fragile buds. Summer, ideally hot and sunny, allows the grapes to ripen and accumulate sugars. Autumn is the moment of truth: the harvest, carried out by hand on the Côte des Blancs to preserve the integrity of the clusters, provides the raw material for the future champagne. It is at this precise moment that the imprint of a year crystallizes, in every cluster of Chardonnay picked on the chalky hillsides of Avize.

When does Frerejean Frères declare a vintage?

At Frerejean Frères, the decision to produce a vintage cuvée is the result of rigorous observation and collective conviction. It is only after the initial fermentations, when the still wine reveals its substance and promise, that the decision is made. A year that is too generous in volume but too light in structure will not be declared a vintage. A difficult year that nonetheless yields wines of remarkable tension and acidity may, on the contrary, become a great vintage. It is an expert judgment, refined by twenty years of practice on this unique terroir.

Cuvée des Hussards: the art of the vintage according to Frerejean Frères

Since the house’s inception, Cuvée des Hussards has been the prestige vintage cuvée from Frerejean Frères. Its name pays tribute to the Napoleonic cavalrymen who used Frerejean family cannons during the great battles of the 19th century and who, according to Champagne tradition, were the first to sabre champagne. This iconic cuvée is crafted from 90% Chardonnay and 10% Pinot Noir, sourced exclusively from Premier and Grand Cru villages in the Côte des Blancs.

A long aging process for the sake of complexity

The Cuvée des Hussards only reveals itself after many long years spent on lees in the cellars of Domaine Frerejean. This prolonged aging is at the heart of the house's identity: it allows the wine to develop an aromatic complexity that young champagnes cannot achieve. The first Cuvées des Hussards, notably the 2005 vintage—the house's first, launched in 2011—demonstrated that this limestone terroir of Avize was capable of producing champagnes with excellent aging potential, comparable to the finest white wines of Burgundy in their evolution. Today, the 2013 vintage of the Cuvée des Hussards perfectly illustrates this signature: tense, mineral, and profound, with a fine, persistent effervescence that reveals more complexity with each passing year.

The aromatic profile of a great blanc de blancs vintage

In its youth, the Cuvée des Hussards expresses notes of white flowers, fresh citrus, chalk, and light brioche, a direct hallmark of Avize chardonnay and aging on the lees. With a few additional years in the cellar or in the bottle, it gains depth: dried fruits, toasted almond, acacia honey, and that saline minerality characteristic of the chalky terroirs of the Côte des Blancs. It is this evolution over time, this promise kept vintage after vintage, that makes the Cuvée des Hussards a fine dining champagne, equal to the most demanding gastronomic pairings.

Vintage champagne is much more than a high-end product: it is a testament. A testament to what nature offered that year, to what a winemaker made of it, and to what time transformed in the silence of a cellar. At Frerejean Frères, this conviction is fundamental. From the first 2005 vintage of the Cuvée des Hussards to our current cuvées, the House has always chosen to let time do its work, never in a rush, always with exacting standards.

Opening a bottle of Cuvée des Hussards is like opening a page of history: that of a specific year on the Côte des Blancs, that of a chalky terroir that gave its all, and that of a House that had the wisdom to wait. Because in Champagne, as elsewhere, the most beautiful things must be earned, and savored.

Discover the vintage Cuvée des Hussards in our collection.