A Champagne celebration with Bérèche et Fils, Marie-Courtin & Agrapart!
8/24/2024
There will still be tiny allocations from grower Champagne houses that should arrive in time for December and the New Year, but we did just receive shipments from Bérèche, Marie-Courtin, and Agrapart that may not be replenished (if at all) until the very end of the year. These are all estates that Chambers Street Wines has been championing since the beginning, and we're delighted to actually have some bottles to sell. Part of me was leaning towards just stocking the bottles for walk-in business and keeping them off the website, but alas, rent is always due and the quiet Summer compels us to spread the love... and sell the darn wine! We'll keep some for the shelf but would encourage our readers from outside the NYC area to grab some of these now. Below are some brief paragraphs about each estate, and of course a big blue button that will take you to all of the wines! -EL
Bérèche et Fils
There is no end to the energy and quality of Bérèche’s wines, which seem to improve with each successive vintage as the vines benefit from Raphaël’s efforts in the vineyards and cellar. When Raphaël took over the estate from his father in 2004, he discontinued the use of herbicides, and converted the vineyards to organic viticulture. He also launched an ambitious project to improve techniques in the winery. Now the majority of the base wines are raised in barrels, and second fermentations for all but the Brut and Extra Brut Reserve take place under cork rather than capsule. Cork aging, a more costly and riskier process than capsule aging, allows very slow, controlled oxidation that gives the wines roundness and fine mousse. In short, no expense is spared in the creation of these beautiful wines.
More and more the wines bear the personal stamp of this talented young winemaker. With malolactic fermentation systematically avoided and dosages kept low (save for the elegant Brut Reserve, with a modest 5-7 grams of dosage), these are intense and full-flavored wines, ripe and expressive with firm structure, and impressive acidity and minerality.
Marie-Courtin
In terms of Champagne houses or even vine growers, Dominique Moreau’s Champagne Marie-Courtin was a relative new comer in the early days of Chambers Street Wines — farming since 2001 (when we opened!) and making wine since 2006. Moreau works 2.5 ha biodynamically in the village of Polisot in the Côte des Bar in southern Champagne whose clay and Kimmeridgian soils are closer to Chablis in profile than than those of the rest the region. She named her estate after her grandmother, Marie Courtin, whom she describes as a “woman of the earth”. With the 2005 vintage, Dominique set out to produce a series of single-vineyard, single-variety, single-vintage, zero-dosage Champagnes from biodynamically-grown grapes that are farmed and elaborated with meticulous care. These wines have gone on to impress and delight many a Champagne connoisseur over the years!
Agrapart et Fils
Pascal Agrapart took over his family domaine, which dates back to the late 19th century, in 1984. With 62 parcels mostly spread across the grand cru villages of Avize, Cramant, Oiry, and Oger (per Peter Liem on his excellent website ChampagneGuide.net) Pascal Agrapart farms his vines conscientiously, avoiding herbicides, pesticides, and choosing to till the soils to encourage the roots to go deeper. In the cellar he ferments in a combination of tank and wood, with the vintage wines seeing significant time on the lees. The resulting Champagnes are deeply mineral and display great distinction between individual cuvées. All are nervy, balancing power with precision, with great expression of soils and sub-soils, be they chalk, clay, or a combination thereof. This transparency shows across the entire lineup, from the generous non-vintage 7 Crus which is made up of Grand Cru Chardonnay from parcels located across the seven Côte des Blancs villages where Agrapart has vines, to Venus, a cuvée derived from a single 300-meter-square parcel of old vines in Avize that is profoundly lean, chalky and taut. For lovers of terroir and Champagne, Agrapart produces Champagnes that are immensely compelling.
