Champagne Odyssée 319 Jour 3 Meunier à Belval sous Châtillon Brut NV

In the aftermath of his grandfather Alfred’s trail-blazing path to build Champagne Franck Bonville, Olivier Bonville is now forging his own path. While maintaining his role as both vintner and CEO for Champagne Franck Bonville, he recently started a new project with a rather ambitious model… enter Champagne Odyssee 319.

Like Odysseus of old, Olivier and his son-in-law Ferdinand Ruelle, are planning to set off on a journey… through the 319 villages in the Champagne appellation. Not far from their base in Avize, you’ll find the vines of Belval sous Châtillon, where the pair partnered with extraordinary vintner David Faivre, whose passion for terroir and organic farming knows no bounds. Sourced from one of his clay-limstone parcels in the 2020 vintage, the 100% Pinot Meunier Champagne offers both fruity intensity and captivating complexity. Just 3,800 bottles of this cuvée are in production, making it as rare and intriguing a Champagne in the under $70 category as you’ll find anywhere.

With a crisp and pleasantly buoyant personality, the wine opens with a lifted floral nose with underpinnings of vegetal brightness. A complex yet amiable tapestry of flavors percolate across the tongue, starting with toasted brioche and apple butter, and adding in notes of hazelnuts, lime, and a sort of freshly baked apple galette component. There is a taut and zippy stoniness to this wine, and it blossoms spectacularly in the glass as you sip! We’ve tried a handful of their wines, and this is yet another tremendous one that’s keeping us firmly seated on their caravan throughout Champagne. Join us, won’t you?