You’re long overdue if you haven’t yet boarded the Dehours bandwagon. After his first visit to America in 2016, Jérôme Dehours’ small-batch wines went into hyperdrive: Forbes labeled them “The Best Champagne You've Never Heard Of,” they began populating prominent wine lists, and Champagne savant Peter Liem urged the cognoscenti to “buy them without hesitation.” Now, Dehours has become a dominant voice in Champagne’s Vallée de la Marne, and although his rare, single-vineyard bottlings are the crown jewels, there’s no better “entry point” into this dazzling lineup than today’s masterfully concocted “Grande Réserve.”

By infusing the 2016 vintage with a perpetual, barrel-aged blend of wines dating back to 1998, Dehours delivers a level of complexity, richness, and depth rarely seen at $50. Further, Dehours is part of “Les Artisans du Champagne,” a who’s who of growers focused on terroir and individuality that includes Paillard, Hébrart, Péters, Vilmart, and Savart. In other words, you’re a long way from home if you’re seeking out heavily marketed, one-dimensional Champagnes. We are certain Dehours’ “Grande Réserve” will elevate your game with its generous texture, vigorous mineral footprint, and stunning clarity, so we highly recommend you snag whatever allocation you can. 

The oddity of Champagne is that a difficult terroir plus cold, dreary weather can produce a crop of immense beauty with ample sunshine and relative dryness leading up to harvest. That’s why we're so excited about Jérôme Dehours: He resolutely believes that his small pocket of vines in Rive Gauche (the “Left Bank,” or south side of the Marne River) are among the coldest and most difficult to work in the region. And yet, he and his small team tend to these finicky vines carefully, with an organic approach. But it’s not just about sustainability: Jérôme is also heavily focused on terroir specificity, and he owns over 40 unique plots throughout three contiguous ‘Rive Gauche’ villages. In the past, we’ve been fortunate to taste through his lineup of single-vineyard bottlings and the quality of each is astounding. Still, an estate lives and dies by its annual non-vintage (‘NV’) release, and Dehours’ “Grande Réserve” is as good as they come. 

It’s Meunier-heavy, along with 20% Chardonnay and 10% Pinot Noir, from a selection of prized sites in the 2016 vintage. The wine underwent alcoholic and malolactic fermentation (lending a creaminess that balances the fierce acidity) in stainless steel before being blended with a large, barrel-aged solera that Jérôme started in 1998. It then matured for just over two years in bottle before being disgorged and dosed with 5.6 grams of sugar. It’s important to note that while he is technically registered as a négociant-manipulant, which generally means someone who purchases grapes from growers, Dehours does all the growing himself. He’s only registered this way so he can sell part of his own crop in order to funnel money into the wines he does produce. 

While many non-vintage Champagnes tend to fit the bill as a light apéritif, Dehours’ “Grande Réserve” offers far more depth and richness. It’s certainly zipping with Marne Valley’s invigorating acidity and the perfumed delicacy of Meunier, but with ample reserves from a decades-old solera, full malolactic fermentation, and small additions of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, it explodes with opulent textures and a powerful, mineral-dominant core. It spills into the glass with deep straw-yellow hues and immediately fires back rich aromatics like peach skin, Rainier cherry, white pear, pineapple core, brioche, crushed almond, lees, honeysuckle, damp white flowers, vanilla, wet rocks, and finely delineated citrus zest. Again, this is no lightweight: the palate oozes luxurious layers of creamy fruit and crushed-stone minerality that only lets up 10+ seconds into the finish. Your bottles will delight now and throughout the next 2-3 years—all you need to do is enjoy around 50-55 degrees in flared tulip stems. Cheers!