Two that have been missed that I think are well worth seeking out are Pierre Gimmonet and Marc Hebrart
I’m a big fan of Vouette et Sorbee. The recent envoyer offering of Fidele was killer.
I’m also a fan of Pierre Gimmonet and Marc Hebrart, plus the Vilmart lineup. I’ve also enjoyed those from Jean Laurent and Bertrand Delespierre.
Love Pierre Gimmonet and Larmandier-Bernier. Guy Charlemagne is excellent though a tough find.
JD
For me, this is the most exciting space in wine in a long time. So much so, I have contemplated a # of times recently whether I have too much still wine and whether I want to keep buying still wine at the expense of more champagne. I am sure that this extreme thinking (!) will pass but there is some truth in it, as I have bought as much, if not more, grower champagne in the last 18 months than I have still wine. Our vacation this year is dedicated to Champagne (well, at least the part I am managing, as The Boss has decision rights over the Paris pieces).
Mousse, Marguet, Vouette et Sorbee, Vilmart, Dethune, Miniere, Mignon…so many of them that I really have fallen for. It’s a great space to investigate and learn about, much like Noah indicates through the # of really good books out there now on what’s happening.
Big Marc Hebrart fan, as well as Vilmart and Cedric Bouchard.
Couldn’t agree more. I’m buying more champagne than all other regions combined right now.
Yes but Bereche buys grapes for the NV…
Thanks to Subu and all others for the tips and thoughts. I agree with Frank and others that this is an exciting space in wine. I have Peter Liem’s and David White’s books, and a few others, and I am a Champagne Warrior subscriber. I find that I am still figuring out how I align with Brad’s ratings.
My eyes were opened by Keith Levenberg with a 1999 Pierre Peters Chevillon that blew me away and even topped a 2002 Bollinger RD.
I have had the luck to have had many vintage Krugs, Cristals and Doms through the generosity of friends and liked them all but don’t know if I could describe the differences between them. I find it a bit hard to really nail down style and find that the books I’ve read tend to wax poetic about pretty much every wine and a “cheat sheet” would be a thousand times more useful than five pages on Selosse and three pages on Prevost.
With every house and grower putting out at a bare minimum 3-4 wines and usually more like a dozen, each named after anything from the obscure lieu-dit that appears in no map to the name of the sadly deceased family donkey, it gets very hard to know much. At least in Burgundy, a Bonnes Mares is a Bonnes Mares and the style of the large handful of owners is basically knowable and predictable over time…
Really hard for me, especially, to get a handle on what should be purchased in caseloads to age for a decade or two and what should be picked up for near term drinking. My current favorite for the latter has been Chartogne-Taillet St-Anne, but again I seem to lack the vocabulary to describe what i love about it…
From Chartogne I very much like the unique Heurtebise BdB. 2008 and 2009 were excellent, and I thought 2009 was the best wine at their table at Fete du Champagne in late 2016.
Prevost sucks. Please do not buy anymore. Send any remaining bottles to me and I will probably dispose of them.
Benoit Dehu is making some amazing meunier if you can find it.
Marie-Noelle Ledru
Fabrice Pouillon
Morlet is pretty fine, too!
JD
Oh yeah! How could I forge Hebrart?! So good!
Noah,
I would love to have a cheat sheet too, but we have to remember Burgundy has had centuries of iterations to get to where it is today. Even now a Bonne Mares from Mugnier is different from Dujac’s to that of Roumier’s.
Champagne years back was a sweet wine, Aube region was not even a part of it. Then came the era of big houses, much like negociants of burgundy. With big marketing budgets they marketed that champagne was all about blending. Just like a manufacturing bags, champagne was lost any site specificity, it became a blink-blink wine. It was more about image and style than what was in the bottle!
Grower champagne is a relatively new phenomenon. The growers are learning which plots are doing well and which aren’t. What works in the cellar and what doesn’t. For instance, it’s laughable that a whole village is labeled as grand-cru. But I understand these are just the first steps.
Hopefully in 50-100 years from now there will be more site specific champagne. People would have found the “Montrachets” and the “Musignys”
Its a learning curve and we are still a part of it. I’m excited to taste, learn and explore…its fascinating.
I hope we as humanity can address the climate change. Otherwise champagne in 100 years will most likely be a still wine area!
I love the grower wines, including most of the ones named in this thread, but I could hardly disagree more with this. There is room for both.
If there is any region where Grand Cru status is relative at best, and meaningless at worst, I would think it to be Champagne.
Well, there’s California 
Neal, I was referring to the social context in which it was getting bought and consumed. Night-clubs, F-1 races, crazy celebrations, etc…
Nothing like a sweeping generalisation! Can you dig into that statement a bit more - ideally with some examples?