Back among the densely mineral and chalky soils of the Champagne region, I met a winemaker who shared my excitement. Pierre Larmandier embodies all that is good about the small producer who also makes a mono-cru. A thoughtful and sweet man, he lives and makes wine in the chardonnay-growing town of Vertus, where he is now operating Champagne Larmandier-Bernier on biodynamic principles.

Yet even though he’s a wine maven’s champagne guy, with an international reputation for innovation, he gets no respect in his hometown. His uncle, Guy (also a champagne maker), lives just a few blocks away. The two barely speak. Uncle disapproves of nephew’s winemaking methods. Pierre makes several champagne blends and one single-vineyard bottling from a densely chalked plot on his property. His mono-cru, Né d’une Terre de Vertus, was created when Pierre realized that the wine tasted better on its own than it did blended into traditional champagne. Terre de Vertus is bubbly yet winelike, with fresh bread and salty sea air aromas, expressing nutty, deeply rich and layered flavours and minerality.

I had to wonder why an international giant like Moët was trying to produce a niche artisanal product on par with those created by Larmandier and his fellow mono-cru growers (who represent only a fraction of the already tiny 2 percent market of small producers in the champagne business). Surely, they didn’t feel threatened, did they? Threatened, no; looking for respect and attention, perhaps. Moët’s Blanck said, “We want to show the world that we too are vine growers, we have beautiful vineyards and we know how to work them.” Blanck’s sentiment is lovely, but I took it as I would an announcement from a chocolate giant like Nestlé, saying they were producing bespoke, handmade chocolates.

Shivering among Moët’s vines in Aÿ, I wasn’t convinced that it was a beautiful vineyard, nor was I convinced that Moët knew how to work it. In fact, the famed chalky white soil wasn’t “worked” at all – it looked dead. Chemical weed killers had clearly been deployed instead of vineyard plows. Scattered about were bits of robin’s egg blue plastic, evidence of the notorious “fertilizer” made from recycled toxic trash that Paris infamously sold to vineyards up until 1998. Some vineyards look and smell so delicious they make me want to speed home to crack open a bottle. To put it delicately, Le Sarments d’Aÿ, and many of the others I saw in Champagne, are not among them.

Blanck tried to persuade me that organic farming was impossible in damp Champagne, where disease and mildew can be difficult to control. When I pointed out the success of Larmandier-Bernier, Jacques Selosse, Jacquesson and Leclerc Briant – all making gorgeous single-vineyard champagnes – Blanck was not impressed. He did admit he would never compare his La Trilogie des Grands Crus “to something like Krug’s Clos du Mesnil, which is presented as the ultimate.”

Ah, Clos du Mesnil: a legendary champagne with a legendary price (about $540 per bottle). I met Krug’s young winemaker, Nicolas Audebert, at the walled-in vineyard, a tiny thing at 1.8 hectares. There we tasted the 1990. It had a strong coconut aspect, an edgy minerality with smoky and toasty edges and an undertone of mushroom. The note I was most attracted to was ginger. I blurted out, “If the wine is this good, can you imagine what it would be like if the soil were allowed to live?” Audebert politely asked what I meant.