Taisne Riocour

The coat of arms on the bottle neck, a tree with three crescents and a star, belongs to two families, Taisne and Riocour. The house is a tribute from five siblings, Amicie, Charles, Pierre, Jacques and Marie-Hélène, to their parents, Angelito de Taisne and Claude de Riocour, who revived a family vineyard first established in 1837. The vineyard has been anchored in Les Riceys since 1967.

The house names family figures and places among the things that inspire its cuvées. Among them are Jacques Balsan and his wife Consuelo Vanderbilt, Etienne de Beaumont and Edith de Taisne in the Roaring Twenties, Solange de Riocour and her friend Lilly Bollinger, and Etienne Balsan, pictured with Coco Chanel.

The vineyard covers twenty hectares, mostly in Les Riceys, the largest wine-growing commune in Champagne. Its twenty parcels average thirty years of age and are 90% Pinot Noir, 10% Chardonnay. The whole estate has held HVE level 3 certification since 2016.

The house uses no pre-emergence herbicides and no insecticides, and it is trialling biodynamic practices. It plants fruit trees and hedges and puts up nesting boxes among the vines. In 2018 it helped found Aster Alba, an association for biodiversity in the Côte des Bar.

Since 2012 the grapes have been pressed at the house's own pressing centre in the heart of the vineyard, with most of the fermentation in temperature-controlled tanks. After tirage in the spring following the harvest, the wines age for at least three years in the cellar. The range includes a Blanc de Noirs, a Blanc de Blancs, a rosé de saignée, a vintage wine and a single-vineyard cuvée, Côte de Tronchois.

The house sums up its style as an alliance of sky and earth. Read the emblem that way and it fits: a tree, three crescents in its crown and a star beneath its roots.