Of all the Champagne growers to have emerged as producers in the past two decades, one may stand alone in terms of the excitement he has created: Olivier Collin of Champagne Ulysse Collin. 

While other new stars are best known for one or two cuvées, every bottle that Collin is coveted by collectors. And, uniquely among today’s growers, his Champagnes are distinguished first by terroir and then by the length of aging. 

His work revolves around five lieux-dits, only one of which is Pinot Noir: Les Maillons. Three are all Chardonnay: Les Pierrieres, Les Roises and Les Enfers. And the last and rarest,  Le Jardin d'Ulysse, represents all of the classic Champagne grape varieties: Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier.

But having a line-up of terroir-based cuvees is not unique in Champagne these days. What makes Collin’s bottlings so unique (apart from their phenomenal quality) is the time of aging on the lees, which he has come to believe unlocks the secret to the greatness of his terroirs. 

With the exception of Le Jardin d'Ulysse (which has been aged on the lees 60 months from its first vintage in 2015), Collin has, over the past decade, increased the aging of each of his cuvées, with Maillons and Pierrières going from 36 to 48 months, and Roises and Enfers from 48 to 60 months. 

But while the above are his standard aging periods, Collin has experimented with even longer lees aging, as he did when he left a small lot of 2010 Les Enfers on the lees for 90 months.

While these tweaks may seem like a technicality, they’re far from it. Time and again, Wine Advocate critic, William Kelley, has noted how increasing the lees aging has taken Collin Champagnes to another level. 

For example, in reviewing Les Enfers based on the 2014 vintage whose aging had been extended from 48 to 60 months, Kelley observed: “Its additional year sur lattes has transformed it into an altogether different wine.”

And in Kelley’s view, Collin has increased the drama of all of his Champagnes by giving them more time on the lees. He writes: “Bringing additional depth, dimension, texture and sapid nuance, the results are nothing short of remarkable. Small wonder that Collin is doing everything he can to retain all his wines on the lees for longer.”

So, let’s take a closer look at how Olivier Collin has become possibly the biggest new star in Grower Champagne. 

Origins

While the Collins have owned vineyards in Congy, a village southwest of the Côte des Blancs, since 1812, the family had long rented out its vines to Pommery. Like so many growers in Champagne, it didn’t actually make wine. Consequently, Olivier Collin didn’t think he would go into winemaking at all. Instead, he studied law.

But by 2001, Collin began to have a change of heart. After being exposed to the restless intellect and perfectionism of the great Anselme Selosse during a 6-week stage in Selosse’s cellar, Collin decided to become a Champagne maker.  

Fortunately, Collin’s legal training equipped him to negotiate out of his family’s contract with Pommery and get the rights back to 4.5 hectares of his family’s vines in 2003. He made his first Champagnes in 2004. 

A year later, in 2005, he was able to reclaim an additional 4.2 hectares of Collin family vines.

Viticulture & Winemaking

After decades of intensive farming (and the likely use of herbicides) Collin set out to regain the health of the vineyard’s soils, which he did primarily plowing and keeping a close eye on leaf health. 

When it came to winemaking, Collin followed in the footsteps of Selosse, by fermenting in barrel or foudre. Today, 20 to 40 percent of each vintage is kept back as reserves, with which to create his magical blends.  Originally, he used 225-liter barrels to store his reserve wines, but he later moved towards foudre. Dosage has always been low (but not extreme), topping out at about 3 grams per liter.

As we’ve noted, aging is a key to the greatness of Collin’s Champagnes. But about 15 years ago—as he explained to William Kelley—he “came to believe that if a wine is going to age gracefully, it has to start out life young.” So, starting in 2009, Collin began to top up his vins clairs during maturation, to prevent oxidation. 

The Wines

Collin’s longest-running is Les Pierrières, which debuted in 2004. It is made from pure Chardonnay, planted on chalky soils containing chunks of black silex (flint), giving the wine a distinctive smoky character as well as intense minerality. 

In 2006, Collin debuted Les Maillons, a Blanc de Noir made from Pinot Noir planted on brown, iron-rich soils in the village of Barbonne-Fayel, in the Côte de Sézanne. While Les Pierrières is chiseled and energetic, Les Maillons is more robust and savoury. Since 2011, Collin has also made a Rosé de Saignée from Les Maillons.

Les Roises is a Blanc de Blanc from sixty-year-old vines in Congy. The vines are massale selection and are planted on a particularly warm, south facing slope. Adjacent to Les Roises is Les Enfers, which has more eastern-facing exposure and less red clay in its soil, producing more open-knit and fruitful wines. 

Olivier’s newest wine is Jardin d'Ulysse, made from a plot of Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier that sits behind Olivier’s home and winery. 

Our thanks to William Kelley, Jamie Goode MW and Essi Avellan MW, for the source material for much of this article.