Champagne Bernard Tornay
Bouzy
The House Bernard Tornay dates back to the 17th Century in the Grand Cru village of Bouzy in the Montagne de Reims.
The Barnaut family appeared in the region in the early 1600’s with Bernard Tornay marrying Simone Barnaut, the House became Champagne Bernard Tornay.
Bernard Tornay was so impressed with a visit he made to see family members in California, who still live in Santa Barbara, that he came home and decided he would create a modern winery adapted to the progress he saw coming in the future.
Owners: Nathalie et Rudy Tornay Hutasse
Website: champagne-tornay.fr
Winemaker: Rudy Hutasse
Vines: 22 Hectares.
Age of Vines: Average age 35 years, Range 10 - 75 years
Ageing on the lees: 3 years NV, 4-.6 years Vintages
Annual Production: 14,000 6 pack cases
The winery in the center of Bouzy was not well adapted to modern working practice, all the bottles had to be hauled up from the cellar by hand and the alley entrance to the House was too narrow for the new generation of trucks to get within a hundred meters. He purchased a green field site, dug a huge hole, and constructed a naturally temperature controlled winery recovered with a meter of earth to isolate it from the ambient temperatures.
The winery was state of the art at the time and has remained so with the continued investment by his daughter Nathalie and her husband Rudy Hutasse, son of the family Fernande Hutasse, Champagne makers in the Premier Cru village of Cumieres.
The house is probably the premier source of red wines used in the Rosés d’assemblage, supplying: Taittinger, Mumm, Duval Leroy, Lanson and many other well known houses with their superb product. The CIVC are very involved with the house as it is the testing ground for many new innovations, which are monitored very closely by the governing body.
