Cramant

Cramant is one of the two original Grand Crus on the Côte des Blancs, alongside Avize, and the only village on the strip whose vineyards wrap a free-standing hill rather than the main slope. The Butte de Saran is geologically an outlier of the Côte des Blancs cuesta, separated from the main ridge by erosion, and the vineyards face every direction from northeast to southwest as they wrap around it. The chalk here is locally described as "oilier," a slow-draining variant that gives the wines from Cramant a softer, rounder texture than those of the more austere southern villages on the strip. The village gave its name to the historic crémant style, a lower-pressure, gentler form of sparkling wine first commercially bottled in Cramant in 1892. The term has since been reassigned to non-Champagne sparkling appellations, but Cramant retains its identity as the place where Côte des Blancs Chardonnay reads as round and approachable.