Malard

Editorial profile

Champagne Malard is a comparatively young house by Champagne standards. Jean-Louis Malard founded the brand in 1996 after growing up in the region and entering business as a négociant-manipulant. Today the family house is based at 23 rue Jeanson in Aÿ-Champagne, placing it in one of the Montagne de Reims’ best-known Grand Cru villages without implying that all of its fruit comes from Aÿ.

Malard’s range is built around two complementary ideas. Excellence covers the familiar house categories—Brut, Blanc de Blancs, Blanc de Noirs, Rosé and vintage Champagne—while Les Historiques turns the focus to individual Grand Cru villages. Current institutional records classify Malard as a house rather than an estate-defined grower producer, so village sourcing should not be confused with vineyard ownership.

Why this producer matters

Malard offers a useful bridge between conventional house blending and village-led Champagne. The Excellence wines give buyers the recognisable stylistic categories expected from a négociant house, while Les Historiques separates Aÿ, Bouzy, Verzenay, Cramant and Avize into distinct bottlings.

That structure makes the range more informative than a simple quality ladder. Three of the village wines come from Pinot Noir strongholds on the Montagne de Reims and Grande Vallée de la Marne, while Cramant and Avize turn to the Côte des Blancs. The interest is therefore comparative: one house using a set of Grand Cru origins as the organising principle for a specialist collection.

Family and cellar

Jean-Louis Malard remains identified by the Union des Maisons de Champagne as managing director. Members of the next generation are involved across commercial, marketing and hospitality roles, maintaining the family identity of the business.

The house describes traditional cellars, a winery and a separate warehouse used for barrel vinification of special cuvées, including the Historiques programme.

Current and meaningful cuvées

Excellence

• Brut Excellence — the core blended reference point.
• Blanc de Blancs Excellence — the white-grape expression in the main range.
• Blanc de Noirs Excellence — the black-grape counterpart.
• Rosé Excellence — the house rosé.
• Millésime Excellence — vintage Champagne; the producer’s current French and English pages show changing vintage availability, so the year must always be attached to the bottle being offered.
• Millésime 2016 BIO — the French catalogue currently identifies a 2016 organic vintage release. That certification and vintage belong to this bottling, not automatically to the wider range.

Les Historiques

• Aÿ
• Bouzy
• Verzenay
• Cramant
• Avize

These are separate Grand Cru village wines rather than flavour descriptors. Current house material says the fruit is selected from partner growers and that the wines are vinified to retain the identity of their respective origins, with some barrel use in the programme.

A Pur Chardonnay – Magnum presentation and boxed Historiques set also appear in the current catalogue; format and packaging should not be mistaken for separate quality tiers.

Champagne.co analysis

Malard’s clearest point of difference is not age, vineyard ownership or a single winemaking technique. It is the decision to place a five-village Grand Cru comparison alongside a more conventional house range. That gives the producer two ways to be approached: by style category through Excellence, or by origin through Les Historiques.

The distinction also makes catalogue discipline important. Aÿ, Bouzy, Verzenay, Cramant and Avize are meaningful geographic identities, while vintage, certification, blend and dosage can change between releases. Keeping those two levels separate makes the range easier to understand and avoids turning one bottling’s specification into a permanent house rule.

Buying guidance

Start with Brut Excellence if the aim is to understand Malard’s blended house reference. Blanc de Blancs, Blanc de Noirs and Rosé Excellence are then straightforward stylistic branches rather than implied steps upward in quality.

For a more terroir-led purchase, the Les Historiques wines are the more distinctive route. Buyers interested in Pinot Noir-oriented Grand Cru origins can compare Aÿ, Bouzy and Verzenay; those looking toward the Côte des Blancs can focus on Cramant and Avize. Check the exact vintage on any Millésime and do not assume the organic status of the documented 2016 release applies to other vintages or cuvées.