Get to know Laureen Baillette of Jean Baillette-Prudhomme
We are honored to partner with the remarkable Laureen Baillette of Jean Baillette-Prudhomme. Laureen’s careful attention to crafting cuvées according to the traditional methode champenoise honors the legacy of her late father and a family history steeped in the Premier Cru vineyards of Montagne de Reims.
Laureen’s story
Laureen Baillette can’t pinpoint exactly when she became a winemaker. Raised on her parents’ 5-hectare Champagne estate in Trois-Puits on the gentle slopes of Montagne de Reims, the land, the work and her dedication to making the world’s best Champagne have been with her for as long as she can remember.
As children, Laureen and her sister, Justine, spent countless hours shadowing their father, Jean Baillette. They washed bottles, moved pallets and helped Jean tend his neat, lush rows of old-vine pinot noir, chardonnay and pinot meunier. In the cellar, the girls watched him blend wines, inspect barrels and riddle each of his bottles by hand. On hot summer days, they cooled off in the chalk cellars carved deep beneath the estate, making up stories and etching their names on the stone walls.
A fourth-generation vigneron, Jean loved having his daughters nearby as he worked. He patiently answered their questions, teaching them not just the technical skills of winemaking but also about the reverence and passion it takes to do it right. Jean learned from his father, Maurice Baillette, who crafted Champagne under the name Baillette-Froment. When Jean married Laureen’s mother, Marie-France — from the Champagne family that lived next door — he received Maurice’s traditional Coquard press and began building his own legacy as a winemaker. He also dug a tunnel between Marie-France’s cellar and his. This was later named “the tunnel of love” by Laureen and Justine.
Even as Laureen left home to pursue her studies, she always knew she’d return. That day came sooner than expected when Jean died unexpectedly in 2005. Laureen returned to help her mother, Marie-France, and her sister, Justine, keep the small family winery going. Laureen and Justine were students at the time, so after six months, with the winery operations stable, the women hired a single employee, and Laureen and Justine went back to their studies. Then, in 2010, Laureen returned to continue her father’s legacy as vigneron of Jean Baillette-Prudhomme. Today, she continues to produce world-class Champagne using the traditional methods she learned from her father.
World-class vineyards
The Jean Baillette-Prudhomme legacy begins in the Premier Cru vineyards of Trois-Puits. Stretching from the forest edge down along the slopes of Montagne de Reims, the vines are positioned to capture optimal sun exposure. Among them are prized old vines, averaging 60 years in age, that bring depth and complexity to Laureen’s wines.
Laureen tends her vines with deep respect for the land, knowing that every decision she makes impacts not just today’s harvest, but the generations to come. Her sustainable farming practices have earned her domaine the prestigious HVE (High Environmental Value) certification — a reflection of her commitment to the future.
After harvest, Laureen uses the same hand-operated Coquard press once used by her grandfather. Nicknamed “le trône” or “the throne,” this traditional press requires a slow, multistep process that is performed entirely by hand. It’s hard work, but for Laureen, it’s a cherished ritual that connects her to the past.
High Environmental Value, or “Haute Valeur Environmentale” in French, is a three-tiered system that encourages vignerons to focus on fostering biodiversity, decreasing negative environmental impact via control of plant diseases, reducing the use of pesticides and fungicides, managing their fertilizer inputs, and improving water management. Once an operation has attained the third and most demanding level of the certification process, it can be called HVE, a marker of the farm's high environmental performance.
All things in balance
One of the hallmarks of Champagne Jean Baillette-Prudhomme is the elegant balance achieved through blending. Laureen carefully combines wines from each new harvest with a generous proportion of reserve wine to add maturity and complexity.
Her liqueur d’expédition is crafted from a perpetual reserve that her father began in 2002. The reserve is kept in old Meursault Burgundy barrels, and each year, the reserve is replenished with the latest vintage — a living memory of past harvests. This reserve is then mixed with sugar and added to the bottle before aging, lending Laureen’s cuvées their signature elegant and refined profile.
Laureen also blends fruit from her estate’s old vines, such as her 80-year-old pinot noir, with grapes from younger vines. The older vines yield less fruit but offer rich, concentrated flavors; the younger vines lend vibrant fruit aromas and lively acidity. The result is a harmonious balance of depth and freshness that shines through in wines that are both powerful and graceful.
Once blended, the wines are aged in the same chalk cellars where Laureen once played as a child, 14 meters below the estate. She riddles each bottle by hand and turns the gyropalettes herself, completing the hard work with a sense of responsibility and reverence.
“We believe that to make a great Champagne, you have to do it with emotion,” Laureen says. “For those of us who grow up learning from our parents, that awakening of taste comes from a very young age. When we were young, our father made us participate in the blending. He wanted us to start shaping our taste buds. Ultimately, the work of developing your senses and a deep connection to the craft is a long-term job.”
Laureen’s deep connection to her land, her Champagne and her family’s legacy is present in every task she performs and in every bottle she produces. Through her, the Jean Baillette-Prudhomme tradition lives on, and while she’s looking toward the future, the memories of those who have come before her are always on her mind.
As vines age, they become more gnarled and knotty, and their root systems dig themselves deep into the soil. This deeper rooting means less water gets to the vines, which causes them to produce fewer grapes, but the grapes that do grow tend to be more concentrated in flavor. Because the vine is struggling and putting more energy into fewer clusters, the resulting wine often has more intense, complex flavors. The reduction in yield also means the grapes tend to be smaller and more concentrated, which leads to a wine that may have more depth, structure and character.
Evolving together
From the very beginning, Laureen’s exquisite Champagnes — and her story — have been at the heart of what fatcork is all about. Fatcork founders Bryan and Abby Maletis met Laureen in 2009, during their second trip to Champagne (the one where they knocked on doors, maneuvered the countryside with paper maps and happily trudged through muddy vineyards). Laureen opened her door to the couple, showing them around her family estate, offering them tastes of vin clair and current vintages and planting the seeds of a meaningful relationship that was built for the ages.
Bryan remembers feeling an instant kinship with Laureen. He was taken by her courage and deep-rooted dedication to her family’s legacy. And her Champagne was some of the best he’d tasted. Laureen was intrigued by Bryan’s idea for a direct-to-consumer grower Champagne business in the U.S., and agreed to work with him. In 2010, when Bryan and Abby opened fatcork, Jean Baillette-Prudhomme was one of the very first offerings. Over the years, Laureen’s Jean Baillette-Prudhomme and fatcork have grown and evolved — together.
“The women of Jean Baillette-Prudhomme are very well-known and respected in Champagne, so when they agreed to do business with us in the U.S., their word helped a lot of other growers say “yes” to us, too,” Bryan says. “We still drop Laureen’s name to this day when searching for new growers.”
Discover Jean Baillette-Prudhomme cuvées for yourself. Bonus points for sipping while you watch this great short documentary on Laureen and her family.
Shop all Jean Baillette-Prudhomme cuvées here.