Doing an IPNC webinar next week and looking for something different in grower champagnes. What are your recs?
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Different to what?
Lots of good things to choose from.
Recent bottles that were deliciois:
Doyard Blanc de Blanc
Agraparte “Terroirs”
Lassaigne “Les Vins de Montguex”
Aurelien Suenen “C+C” (Chouilly and Cramant fruit)
What about one of the Aubry cuvées that use the alternative grapes (e.g. petit meslier). I think Cedric Bouchard still does a pinot blanc Champagne.
Also not clear on different from what, but here are some of my favorites
Pierre Peters
Bereche
Benoit Lahaye
Calsac
Vilmart
Drappier
Benoit Marguet
People I like a lot but don’t find myself buying these days
Vouette et Sorbe
Agrapart
Beaufort
Collin
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Egly-Ouriet, Ulysse Collin (especially his rosé champagne offering), Bereche.
This gives me a thought - go with an all Pinot Meunier lineup.
I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the Prevost, Dehu and Mignon pinot meunier champagnes I’ve had in the past year. Mignon is a great value.
Mousse Fils is another excellent Meunier producer.
I love the Bereche Rive Gauche.
Chartogne Taillet Les Barres is 100% meunier and another good example. The mignon rosé is also quite good, but runs a bit sweet for my taste. The Prevost Fac Simile is one of the best rosé champagnes that I’ve ever had the pleasure of drinking, but difficult to source.
My new favorite is Dehu La Rue des Noyers - Pinot Meunier
Collin is my favorite grower champagne by a significant distance, but not the rose, which is a very divisive wine. It’s…unusual.
I am going to assume that you are interested in something different in topic and not just different producers. A couple of thoughts on interesting topics:
Disciples of Selosse
Understanding Terroir through grower Champagne
Collin’s Rosé de Saignée is probably in my top 5 favourite wines ever. Galloni is right, it leaves you weak in the knees.
As I said, a divisive wine. I’ve brought it to dinners where it generally elicits a “huh, that’s interesting” note.
That’s probably my favourite too along with Chartogne-Taillet’s wines, Hugues Godme’s Les Romaines is pretty great as well.
I would certainly add Champagne Frederic Savart in the list. His top wines are the expression and the Mont Benoit but all of his wines taste really excellent. The wines are elegant, refined and bit more generous than the wines of Chartogne Taillet (even though the latters’ style has changed from the 2016’s on with a rounder freshness making them a bit more approachable young IMO) but not as rich as Krug for example. If you want to get to know his wines try a “l’accomplie”: this is a gold standard champagne for me as it has a perfect balance between freshness and complexity.
For Agrapart try the “mineral” if you don’t know them, it is mid-range in price but the quality is close to l’Avizoise.
Vilmart is also really excellent but these wines need time IMO, many champagnes without malolactic fermentation require a bit more time in bottle than the ones with. At least to my taste as the acidity often sticks out in the early days but this often leads to really beautifull results after 2 years in bottle.
He does - it is his La Boloree. Old vine pinot blanc in a parcel of a small fraction of a hectare. Good luck finding it!
A personal favorite of mine is Jacques Lassaigne - he really likes to experiment a bit and some some very unique cuvees that he does as one time releases.
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