A l’Aube de la Côte des Bar Brut Nature 2022 375ml

A Champagne that shows maturity and freshness at the same time. The nose offers lemon juice and lemon zest, fresh apples, graphite and crushed stone, alongside subtle oxidative notes: mellow apples, oyster shells, a touch of iodine. A light reduction sits over the top. The coppery tinge of the golden yellow colour is echoed in the bouquet as well.

The vines stand around Noé-les-Mallets in the Côte des Bar, facing south-east at around 320 metres of altitude. The subsoil is Kimmeridgian limestone and marl topped with a layer of clay; the limestone strata hold the fossils of the oyster Exogyra virgula, a 150-million-year-old legacy that returns in the glass as minerality and salt.

Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. Delphine Brulez separates the musts across four pressings, finer than usual, and the base wine ferments with wild yeasts in used Burgundy barrels. The blend was assembled in stainless steel and bottled in June/July 2023, disgorged in October 2025 as Brut Nature, meaning no dosage.

Round, fresh and intense. Red cellar apples, ripe stone fruit, mellow pome fruit and herbs meet chalky minerality, a very fine tannin and salinity. The mousse stays lively and fine, the acid structure and minerality are those of a young wine.

At Champagne Louise Brison, every wine is a vintage Champagne and every wine is Brut Nature. Founded in 1910, the house is now run by fourth-generation Delphine Brulez, an agricultural engineer and oenologist, and also a member of the winegrowers' collective Les Fa'bulleuses. The estate has farmed organically since 2011, pruning by the gentle Simonit-Sirch method. Under her guidance, the mycorrhizal fungal network in the soil has grown from 18 to 70 percent.