The 178 hectares of the house are planted with 85% of Grand Cru and Premier Cru vineyards, spread over seven main vineyards: Aÿ, Avenay, Tauxières, Louvois et Verzenay are planted with Pinot Noir, Cuis with Chardonnay and Champvoisy with Pinot Meunier. Bollinger is one of the very few champagne houses to produce the majority of their grapes for their blends. Pinot Noir represents 60% of the Maison's vineyard, corresponding to the exact proportion of this demanding grape in the Special Cuvée blend. Complex and powerful, it provides Bollinger wines with their remarkable structure. Another of Bollinger's distinctive features are two plots, Clos Saint-Jacques and Chaudes Terres, which never succumbed to phylloxera, the disease that devastated nearly the entire champagne wine area in the early 20th century. These ungrafted vines are entirely hand-cured and reproduced using a form of layering called provignage, thus providing the means to preserve this extraordinary heritage from which the exclusive Vieilles Vignes Françaises cuvée is produced.