Featured This Month
Egly-Ouriet
A grower champagne defined by depth, precision and terroir.
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The most interesting Champagnes are being made by people you've never heard of.
The Champagne Companion
Now Drinking
Egly-Ouriet
Blanc de Noirs Grand Cru
Ambonnay, Montagne de Reims
Dense and mineral, this is pinot noir doing something genuinely uncommon. Layered without being heavy. Will reward patience.
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Pierre Péters
Cuvée de Réserve Blanc de Blancs
Le Mesnil-sur-Oger, Côte des Blancs
Chardonnay at its most precise. Chalk-driven minerality, green apple, and a finish that holds long. The benchmark for non-vintage blanc de blancs.
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Billecart-Salmon
Blanc de Blancs 2014
Mareuil-sur-Aÿ, Vallée de la Marne
A vintage that asked for restraint. Billecart obliges. The 2014 blanc de blancs is taut, focused, and nowhere near its peak. Open it in five years.
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Discovered This Month
Pierre Gerbais
L’Originale · Pinot Blanc
Celles-sur-Ource · Côte des Bar
The Côte des Bar sits at the southern edge of the appellation, separated from the Montagne de Reims by nearly a hundred kilometres and a very different relationship with the land. Pierre Gerbais farms in Celles-sur-Ource, a village that most visitors to Champagne will never find on an itinerary. That is precisely the point. The family has grown Pinot Blanc here for generations — a variety so rare in the region that most producers abandoned it entirely when Chardonnay proved easier to sell. Gerbais did not. L’Originale is made from ungrafted Pinot Blanc vines planted in 1942, and it is unlike almost anything else in the appellation. No dosage. No apology. A wine that earns its place on any serious table.
Producer of the Month
Egly-Ouriet
From Ambonnay, Francis Egly makes Champagne with the patience of a Burgundian. Low dosage, extended lees ageing, and pinot noir that speaks with uncommon clarity of its grand cru terroir. The bottles are unhurried. So is the drinking.
“I only drink Champagne when I’m happy, and when I’m sad. Sometimes I drink it when I’m alone. When I have company I consider it obligatory. I trifle with it if I’m not hungry and drink it when I am. Otherwise I never touch it — unless I’m thirsty.”
Lily Bollinger