Bérêche i p'ješ: Issue #2

Issue #1 was six bottles from Bérêche & Fils - six different conversations from one cellar. This time the frame widens: still one cellar in Ludes, but three different names on the labels, and nine bottles on the table.

Bérêche these days is less a domaine than a small family universe. There is Bérêche & Fils itself - Raphaël and Vincent, fifth generation, the house that reshaped how I think about Champagne. There is Pauline Collin Bérêche - Pauline is married to Raphaël, a seventh-generation Ludes grower in her own right, and her entire range is a single old-vine cuvée. And there is Domaine les Monts Fournois - cousin Juliette Alips's project, building micro-négociant cuvées from trusted growers while the family's nine-hectare monopole in Ludes matures toward its first release. Same barrel ferments, same low dosage, same patience. Different voices - that is the theory this evening was built to test.

And because bubbles are only half of what this family does, the middle of the evening goes still: two Coteaux Champenois Chardonnays - the rare Aÿ Blanc and the Les Monts Fournois lieu-dit from Ludes - then the Ormes rouge, pure Pinot Noir with no mousse to hide behind. From there it is back to bubbles for the summit: Aÿ Grand Cru 2016 with its seventy-eight months on lees, and Campania Remensis 2018 to close in rosé - a returning guest, the same wine we poured at Issue #1.

(And one bonus from outside the family to send everyone home: Prémices from Jules Brochet, a young Taissy grower with a Selosse internship on his CV. A different orbit, a fitting echo.)

Right then. Let's see what these wines had to say.

Bérêche & Fils Brut Réserve L:22BSA-06/25 NV

The welcome glass and the house anchor - roughly equal thirds Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and Meunier from the domaine's patchwork across Ludes, Ormes, Mareuil-le-Port, and Trépail. About 70% base 2022; the rest comes from the Reflet d'Antan perpetual reserve started in 1985. Bottled under cork for the prise de mousse, hand-disgorged June 2025 after roughly two and a half to three years on lees. Where every Bérêche evening should start.

Same story as the previous lot, and that's a compliment. Lemon and white plum ride over brioche and butter, with a touch of cider and a little honey behind them - generous aromatics for an entry cuvée. The palate is round and confident, the acidity quietly balancing the dosage. The house handshake hasn't changed its grip.

Domaine les Monts Fournois Côte Grand Cru (d2024-11) NV

The flagship of the Crus Sélectionnés range - Juliette's micro-négociant line while the monopole vines come of age. 100% Chardonnay from Chouilly Grand Cru on the Côte des Blancs, base 2019, 53 months on lees, disgorged November 2024. Extra Brut at 5.6 g/l, finished in the family cellar in Ludes.

The nose leads with restraint - fine-boned, faintly perfumed, white apple and brioche and citrus taking turns rather than shouting. The palate is where it earns its keep: precisely balanced, seriously structured, with a chalky grain running through it like the Chouilly subsoil it grew on, and a finish that refuses to hurry. Quietly beautiful.

Pauline Collin Bérêche Vieilles Vignes Ludes 1er Cru 2019

Pauline's entire range in one wine - a roughly two-hectare parcel of old vines in Ludes 1er Cru. 65% Pinot Noir, 30% Chardonnay, 5% Petit Meslier, vinified in used 450-litre Burgundy barrels and aged about four years on lees. Disgorged July 2024 with no added dosage. Just under ten thousand bottles exist. Vinous enough to open the door to what comes next.

A completely different conversation from the wine before it. The apples here have gone somewhere - part lacto-sour, part baked - wrapped in baking spice and a quiet mushroom depth. Serious structure, a neat saline edge, and absolutely no readiness: this wants years of cellar, not minutes of swirling. Though the swirling helps - with air it opens enormously, turns honeyed, and holds itself together for the rest of the evening.

Bérêche & Fils Aÿ Blanc Grand Cru 2022

The flight goes still here. Coteaux Champenois Chardonnay from Bérêche's parcel in Aÿ - a Grand Cru village famous for almost everything except Chardonnay. Vinified and aged in oak. The younger and tighter of tonight's two still blancs, which is exactly why it pours first.

Grilled lime and canned sardines is not everyone's idea of a compliment, but here it is one. The flint-and-chalk character is almost absurd in its intensity, the oak tucked neatly in behind, and the acidity cuts deep without once turning painful. Lean, classy and multilayered, but wound so tight and so young that the kindest thing you can do is leave it alone for a few more years. Delicious either way.

Bérêche & Fils Les Monts Fournois Ludes 1er Cru Blanc 2019

The second still Chardonnay - same question, different soil. This one comes from the Les Monts Fournois lieu-dit, the south-facing Ludes slope that gave the domaine its name, vinified and aged in oak and carrying three more years of bottle age. Coteaux Champenois Chardonnay is rare in any vintage; from this site it doubles as a preview of what the monopole project is sitting on.

Next to the Aÿ Blanc poured just before, this one shows its acidity naked - harder, brighter, more aggressive. The same DNA runs underneath: layered, complex, stretching slowly open with time in the glass, and strangely approachable for all its elbows. Then, out of nowhere, plombir ice cream on the nose. I love it, even while it fights me.

Bérêche & Fils Ormes Rouge Les Montées 2022

The still story turns red - 100% Pinot Noir from the Les Montées parcel in Ormes, on the Petite Montagne: a quarter hectare of roughly sixty-year-old vines, vinified and aged in oak, bottled by gravity in March 2024. Only 880 bottles exist. No bubbles, nowhere to hide.

Silky to the point of mischief - it drinks like cherry kompot, and I mean that fondly. The nose is more curious than complex: cherry and strawberry shading into sardine, menthol, pine, a faint trace of blood. Nothing here aims for fireworks; the whole point is balance and seamlessness, one texture from the first sip to the last. The acidity falls a step short, and I find I don't mind at all.

Bérêche & Fils Aÿ Grand Cru 2016

Back to bubbles, and straight to the summit. Two parcels in Aÿ totalling around 0.6 hectares - Brise Pot for Chardonnay, Froide Terre for Pinot Noir - co-fermented in oak, roughly three-quarters Pinot. 78 months on lees, disgorged November 2023, Extra Brut. Aÿ is the Pinot Noir reference of Champagne, and with the still Aÿ Chardonnay fresh in memory, the village gets to argue both sides.

Cheese crisps. That toasted, cheesy crust, first thing out of the glass - and then the wine keeps unpacking: berries, lemon, cream, perfume, a bit of pineapple, meringue, smoke, baked apple. This is Champagne at its most vinous, almost full-bodied, powerful and voluminous, with acidity that carries all that weight effortlessly down a long finish. Texture, depth, length - love this wine.

Bérêche & Fils Campania Remensis 2018

The closer, and a returning guest - the same 2018 we poured at Issue #1. Bérêche's rosé Extra Brut from the plots around Ormes: Pinot Noir-led with Chardonnay, a touch of Meunier, and a small co-planted field-blend parcel; saignée plus a splash of still red for colour and grip. More than 36 months on lees, disgorged March 2022. The Petite Montagne in rosé form - leaner and more savoury than pretty. Second look, same room, new company.

Seven months later and the answer hasn't changed. The sea arrives first - iodine, salt spray - then strawberries, crisp red apple and tart cranberry over fresh brioche, with salted caramel folding in behind. The palate is the argument: power and precision pulling in the same direction, real concentration that never turns heavy. Long, vibrant, refined - backbone with charm, exactly as I remembered it.

Jules Brochet Prémices NV

The bonus, and the only bottle of the night from outside the family - though it rhymes: another grower's entry cuvée, another small lot (this bottle is number 1755 of 2093). Pierric Brochet farms organically in Taissy and a handful of villages across the Montagne de Reims and the Marne valley, trained with a stint at Jacques Selosse, and named the label after his great-grandfather Jules. 60% Pinot Noir and 40% Chardonnay from the 2020 harvest with 20% perpetual reserve; spontaneous ferment, unfined, unfiltered. Tirage July 2021, disgorged July 2023 after 24 months on lees.

Wormwood and toasted sesame is not how Champagne usually introduces itself - then mandarin oil, warm spices, walnut, red apple and timur berry, with almond, quince, brioche and even a buttered-popcorn note arriving behind. Full-bodied and broad-shouldered, real concentration with texture to match, the mousse pillowy and the acidity ripe yet vibrant underneath all that width. Long, resonant, perfumed - golden apple on the finish with a subtle patina from the oak. What a way to discover a producer.

Caroline Morey Chassagne-Montrachet Chambrées 2021

A late extra from a different map altogether - still Chardonnay from Caroline Morey, 2021. After an evening of Champagne in all its forms, a glass of white Burgundy to argue about on the way out.

Smoke first, and then the prettier things underneath - white flowers, anise, citrus, fresh lemon, even a faint flick of petrol threading through. The palate carries the class: medium-bodied with fine volume, flavours that manage to caress and punch at the same time, everything held in elegant focus. Complex, no question - just a bit too young, and not in a friendly mood today. The kind of bottle that asks for patience rather than affection.

Raw scores