Domaine Nowack

Domaine Nowack has been in Champagne since 1795 - the back label reads En Champagne depuis 1795 - but the modern voice is Flavien Nowack, who joined the family domaine in 2011 and steered it onto a parcel-by-parcel, single-village register. The estate is in Vandières in the Vallée de la Marne. Organic farming, harvest only at full maturity.

Flavien started with three hectares passed down from his father and built a lineup of three single-parcel Champagnes - one Pinot Meunier, one Pinot Noir, one Chardonnay - all at the same elevation in Vandières so the differences read as variety, not site. Sister cuvées include the Sans Année Assemblage and a small range of multi-parcel bottlings. The back labels routinely note présence d'arbres et d'animaux dans la parcelle - agroforestry rather than monoculture, animals welcome.

In the cellar: indigenous yeasts, no chaptalisation. Malolactic is permissive - neither blocked nor inoculated - so it occurs naturally in some cuvées and not others; the producer is silent on it and importers split between malo happens naturally in spring and no malo sought. For the prise de mousse Flavien uses fresh unfermented grape juice (moût) from the following vintage rather than added sugar or rectified concentrate, which carries the bottles to a lower pressure than typical Champagne and a more vinous texture.