They have long been important growers in the wine region. Vincent and Raphaël Bérêche manage the family winery, which has been operating since 1847, with their father, Jean-Pierre. The big change in the life of the house came in 2004, when the young siblings were among the first to switch to chemical-free viticulture in the region. Since then, they have been cultivating their own 11 hectares of vineyards using organic-biodynamic methods. Three main varieties are grown in equal proportions on their plots, and the soil is defined by pure limestone almost everywhere. The base wines are made with minimal intervention, they are fermented spontaneously in barrels, then they are bottled without malolactic fermentation, in May, unfiltered. For the secondary fermentation, most of the bottles are sealed with corks instead of crown caps, so that the champagne is able to breathe and communicate with the outside world during the ageing on the lees. Therefore, “the structure becomes creamier and the bubbles more delicate,” says Raphaël, who welcomes us as he steps out of the cellar wearing an apron, with a monkey wrench in his back pocket. The cellar has Old World charm, and the bottles are disgorged one by one by hand.

The Brut Réserve is the estate's bestseller and a stable point of reference year after year. It’s a blend that comes from a total of seven hectares, from 40-plus-year-old vines. The proportion of the three varieties is almost the same, and a third of the final blend is reserve wine. The unfiltered bottling was followed by two to three years of bottle ageing, then disgorging. Dosage: 7 g/l.