There’s no point in beating around the bush with tonight’s bonus offer. We’ve got Bérêche and we’ve got a very tiny amount of it. For those unfamiliar, Raphaël and Vincent Bérêche are considered by practically everyone to be among the top five grower-producers in all of Champagne. They helped kick off the grower Champagne revolution over two decades ago and they’ve been at the top of the sparkling wine pecking order ever since. Their “Brut Reserve” is both a beautiful encapsulation of what makes them special and their most accessible bottling. It’s everything we love about the family’s wines and, indeed, great grower bubbles – pure, vinous power married to scintillating freshness; mineral precision alongside ample autumnal fruit; and complexity you simply don’t find in many other parts of the world. Grower Champagne just doesn’t get much better than this, and certainly not without crossing into the triple-digit price point. The only bad news is that the Bérêche brothers are still making tiny quantities of wine, so we’ve got a measly four cases of their “Brut Reserve” to offer. Act fast!
Current proprietors (and brothers) Raphaël and Vincent Bérêche are rightly credited with putting their family’s name on the world wine map, but at least some of what makes the estate so special is in its history. It was founded in 1847 in the heart of Champagne, the Montagne de Reims. Across six generations, the family has been able to do what few French winemaking clans could: keep their holdings intact. Legally, vineyards have to be evenly distributed by parents for their children’s inheritance, meaning wineries often wind up owning scattershot parcels as children not in the wine business sell off what they get. But the wider Bérêche clan has managed to hang onto all of their historical parcels, so the brothers now get to work with large, contiguous holdings of clearly defined single vineyards.
As a result, the Bérêche brothers know their terroir intimately, and they work with much older vines than many of their neighbors. Farming is biodynamic, and proceeds according to a regime that is frankly insane in its precision: the 11.5 hectare estate has ten full-time employees. Every employee is responsible for a specific plot and farms according to Vincent’s meticulous standards. In the cellar, Raphael has pioneered a lot of the techniques now considered de rigeur for artisanal grower producers. Base wines are fermented in barrel and cement, malolactic is blocked, tirage takes place under cork rather than crown cap which allows the wine to breathe throughout its long lees aging, and dosages are kept to the absolute minimum. We often describe great grower Champagne as “vinous,” which might sound tautological. Isn’t all wine vinous? But one sip of Bérêche and you get it: these wines have more concentration, more terroir imprint, more sheer complexity than almost anything from the big houses. And it’s largely because of the insanely high quality of the raw materials, not the aging process. Bérêche is profound wine first, Champagne second.
For the Bérêche brothers’ “Brut Reserve,” they use roughly equal proportions of Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and Pinot Meunier. It comes from four villages – Ludes, Ormes, Mareuil-le-port and Trépail – in the Vallée de la Marne and Montagne de Reims. This release is 55% 2021 and 45% from a perpetual reserve going back to the mid-80s–2021 was a challenging year which accounts for the unusually high amount of reserve wine. Treat the “Brut Reserve” as you would any great white wine, poured into white wine glasses and not flutes. It pours a clear straw color with hints of pure gold and a very fine mousse. The nose opens with ripe pear flesh and skin, peach pit, red apple, white flowers, crushed chalk, toasty brioche, fresh-churned butter, and hazelnuts. The palate is medium-bodied and super classy, a near-perfect balance of mineral savor, rich fruit, and floral tones. There’s real concentration to it and it’s buoyed by some brilliant acidity. It is, in short, close to our ideal Champagne. And if you’re fast enough, it can be yours too!
