Louis Roederer Hommage à Camille Coteaux Champenois Essi Avellan MW tastes the first Chardonnay and Pinot Noir releases from a promising project that raises the bar for quality in the rapidly growing Coteaux de Champagne still-wine scene In essence, this is a lab,” says Champagne Louis Roederer’s chef de cave Jean-Baptiste Lécaillon of the house’s new Coteaux Champenois project. “With these still wines, we seek to express the terroirs and to see them without the bubbles.” The climate during the last few decades of the 20th century wasn’t favorable for still-wine making in Champagne, but climate change has opened up new possibilities. “We can pick earlier and riper, and the fruit can be perfectly clean. We wanted to explore these dimensions,” Lécaillon reasons regarding the decision to venture into the making of still wine.