De Sousa Champagne

Champagne De Sousa cuvées

Brut Tradition

The entry-level cuvée, true to the house style. A blend of 50% Chardonnay, 40% Pinot Noir and 10% Pinot Meunier from Avize Grand Cru, Grauves Premier Cru and Mardeuil, entirely vinified in vats to preserve the purity and freshness of the fruit.

Notes of white fruit, flowers and chalk, the Champagne brut tradition is the ideal way to discover the world of De Sousa before delving into its prestige cuvées.

Reserve Grand Cru Blanc de Blancs

A Grand Cru Blanc de Blancs non-vintage, which delights with its freshness, finesse and pure expression of Chardonnay, blended from the finest plots in Avize, Oger and Cramant. The gateway to Blancs de Blancs of the house.

Cuvée 3A

La cuvée 3A De Sousa offers an exceptional blend: 50% Chardonnay d'Avize, 25% Pinot Noir d'Aÿ and 25% Pinot Noir d'Ambonnay. Three Grands Crus whose initials give the cuvée its name.

Vinification is 50% in ovoid barrels and 50% in vats. The nose is powerful, with floral, dried fruit and toasted coffee notes. The palate is very round, with notes of honey and a long, fresh finish.

Cuvée des Caudalies Blanc de Blancs

La cuvée des Caudalies is the absolute flagship of the De Sousa house. 100% Chardonnay from biodynamically farmed vines over 50 years old in Avize, Oger and Le Mesnil-sur-Oger, vinified and aged in oak barrels, 15% of which are new. The blend combines 50% of the harvested vintage with 50% reserve wines from a solera covering the years 1995 to 2017. The cuvée is then aged for five years on lees before disgorging. With notes of toast, white peach, greengage and green anise, this is a cuvée of exceptional minerality and length, capable of aging for ten years or more.

Cuvée des Caudalies

Rosé A delicate blend of 90% Chardonnay and 10% Pinot Noir, vinified with gentle eight-day maceration and aged in oak barrels with indigenous yeasts, without filtration or fining. With its delicate salmon-brown color and hint of red berries and chalky minerality, the cuvée Caudalies Rosé is a gourmet champagne.

Cuvée Mycorhize

The plots of Cuvée Mycorhize are worked exclusively with horses. The name says it all: mycorrhize, the symbiosis between fungi and plant roots, embodies the interaction between soil and vine that lies at the heart of the De Sousa philosophy. It's not about esotericism, but about preventing soil compaction and encouraging root growth. The most radical cuvée in the range, a pure expression of living terroir.

Did you know?

The name "Caudalies" is not chosen at random. In wine tasting, a caudalie is the unit of measurement for aromatic persistence in the mouth after swallowing, with one second of persistence equivalent to one caudalie. Great wines often have fifteen or more caudalies. In naming his flagship cuvée this way, Erick De Sousa has made length on the palate not a result, but a promise, and the name is kept with every vintage.

Discover De Sousa champagne

While others are chasing volume, De Sousa remains committed to human-scale production, with vines averaging 45 years old in the heart of the Côte des Blancs. The champagnes have been Demeter-certified since 2013, long before organic became a marketing argument. The result: crystal-clear, precise champagnes with an unrivalled chalky minerality, which feature on the best tables in France and around the world.

The history of De Sousa

The history of the house begins where History with a capital H shook things up. Manuel De Sousa left Portugal to join the French front during the First World War, like thousands of other soldiers in the Portuguese Expeditionary Corps. It was on the chalky soil of Champagne that he first set foot on French soil, never imagining that his family would put down roots here for several generations. After the armistice, he chose not to return permanently to Portugal, and settled in Avize with his wife and young son Antoine. Fate was cruel: a brain tumor took his life at just 29, leaving behind a destitute family in a region he had only just adopted.

Antoine was to write the sequel. By marrying Zoémie Bonville, heiress to a long line of winegrowers in Avize, he sealed the alliance between the De Sousa name and the Champagne vineyards. It was then that the house really took shape. Erick, their son, took over the reins in 1986, with a firm belief in parcel-based vinification, the gradual abandonment of chemical inputs, and conversion to biodynamic viticulture in 1999. He died suddenly in 2023, leaving behind a house at the height of its reputation and three children determined to pursue its high standards: Charlotte in sales, Julie with the vines and horses, Valentin in the cellar.

Terroir and style of De Sousa champagne

At De Sousa, biodynamic viticulture isn't a marketing ploy; it's a conviction that long predates the organic trend. Conversion began in 1999, organic certification came in 2010, and Demeter certification in 2013, at a time when very few champagne houses were embarking on this path. In concrete terms, this means that the soil is worked with a horse to avoid compaction, natural composts are used instead of synthetic fertilizers, and the viticultural calendar is based on lunar cycles. There's no esotericism in this approach: just a conviction that soil health is the primary condition for terroir expression.

And what a terroir it is! The vineyard covers 14 hectares spread over 92 parcels, the vast majority of which are old vines, some planted by Erick's grandfather and now approaching 70 years of age. These are vines whose roots plunge 35 or 40 meters into the chalk, seeking out a minerality that younger vines can't reach. This depth of rooting has another, less visible but just as valuable effect: it naturally imposes low yields and favors a concentration and ripeness of the grapes that no intervention in the cellar could compensate for.

For the old vine parcels, Erick De Sousa was one of the first in the village to introduce vinification in oak barrels, not to wood the wine, but to give it texture and fatness. The other parcels are vinified in enamelled vats, to preserve the purity of the fruit.