Bérêche i p'ješ: Issue #1
Six bottles from Bérêche & Fils. Six different personalities. This is what exceptional Champagne farming looks like.
By Boris · Hosted by Boris Buliga
There's something quietly thrilling about opening six bottles from the same producer and discovering six completely different conversations. Not variations on a theme - actual different conversations, each with its own rhythm and agenda.
Bérêche does this to me every time. I've been circling this domaine for years now, always finding something that makes me reconsider what I thought I understood about Champagne. They work in the classical heartland - Ludes, Ormes, the usual Montagne de Reims villages - but nothing about the results feels predictable. It's terroir-driven winemaking without the tedious sermonising that sometimes comes with it. Just exceptional farming, minimal intervention, and wines that taste like actual places rather than brand concepts.
Tonight's horizontal gave me the full arc: from the Brut Réserve (their everyday wine, if you can call something this good 'everyday') through to the Ambonnay Grand Cru 2017, which frankly drinks more like Burgundy than Champagne. In between: pure Meunier that's elegant rather than rustic, a rosé that's got proper structure instead of just pretty colour, a Blanc de Blancs that's all chalk and nerve, and Le Cran 2017 - their flagship, the wine that puts premier cru Ludes on the map as serious terroir.
What strikes me most is how distinct each bottle is. Not just technically distinct (though the tech specs are fascinating), but emotionally distinct. The Rive Gauche wants one thing from you. The Ambonnay wants something else entirely. You could blind taste these and never guess they came from the same hands, the same philosophy, the same cellar.
This is what I mean when I say I love Bérêche's style - it's not really a style at all. It's rigorous transparency. What you taste is what the terroir gave them that year, filtered through impeccable technique but never through a house flavour profile.
Right then. Let's see what these wines had to say.
| Wine | WAVG | SD | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Brut Réserve L:21BSA-06/24(2021) NV Bérêche & Fils | #6 | 4.22 | 0.17 | – |
 Rive Gauche2020 Bérêche & Fils | #5 | 4.28 | 0.08 | 2 |
 Bérêche & Fils | #4 | 4.44 | 0.13 | 1 |
 Bérêche & Fils | 🥉 | 4.45 | 0.11 | 1 |
 Le Cran2017 Bérêche & Fils | 🥈 | 4.52 | 0.26 | 1 |
 Bérêche & Fils | 🥇 | 4.54 | 0.29 | 2 |
Bérêche & Fils Brut Réserve L:21BSA-06/24 NV
Lush and expressive, more volume than you'd expect from an entry-level cuvée. The nose is charming - lemon, brioche, butter, cider, white plums, a hint of honey. Rounded and full-bodied on the palate with real staying power. The acidity is excellent, beautifully balanced by the dosage, giving proper concentration. Spices, fruits, minerality, and honey all blur together on the finish.
Bérêche & Fils Rive Gauche 2020
Sicilian orange, grapefruit, red and white currants, red flowers that feel slightly past their prime - there's something perfumed and complex here. The acidity is wonderful, electric really, with elegant layers that keep unfolding. Still quite young and charged with energy. This is 100% Meunier that drinks like it's got something to prove, and honestly? It succeeds. Beautiful stuff.
Bérêche & Fils Campania Remensis 2018
Bloody hell, this is wonderful. Fresh brioche, maritime iodine and sea salt, strawberries, crisp red apples, tart cranberries. Salted caramel. The palate is impressively structured - power and precision in equal measure, remarkable concentration that never feels heavy-handed. Long, vibrant, refined. One of my favourite rosé Champagnes, though I reckon the 2019 edges it out slightly. Still, this is sexy stuff with actual backbone.
Bérêche & Fils Ludes 1er Cru Les Beaux Regards 2018
Profound and generous while staying mineral and vinous - a rare combination. Peanut butter, marzipan, iodine (lots of it, like mineral water from the Carpathians), sweet spices, lemon curd, flowers, tartness. Intense and racy with rounded length. The balance here is wonderful - tarragon, bitter herbs, that chalky mid-slope Ludes character coming through clearly. This tastes expensive in the best way: complex without trying, delicious without compromise.
Bérêche & Fils Le Cran 2017
Cheese popcorn, toasted hazelnut, macadamia, pear, white flowers, rye bread, exotic fruit. Generous and charming on the palate with tangy acidity and vivid saline touch. So fresh despite the power and ageing - doesn't quite hit the crystalline precision of an absolute top-tier, but honestly? I'm not sure I care. This is the flagship for a reason. It's got that mid-slope Ludes magic: intensity without weight, complexity without showing off. Wow.
Bérêche & Fils Ambonnay Grand Cru 2017
Oh wow, this is very Burgundy on the nose. Bitter herbs, sesame, iodine, pomegranate, rye bread and pink grapefruit, brioche and spices layered together. Full-bodied, satiny, rich - an elegantly muscular profile with tangy acids leading into a long, expansive finish. This is pure Pinot Noir from Les Tourets, and it shows. The clay soils give it this velvety texture that's completely different from the chalk-driven wines earlier in the flight. Treat it like red Burgundy, because that's basically what it wants to be. Stunning.