Ultradition (d2024)

Ultradition is Laherte's calling card, the non-vintage brut that introduces the house and its home village of Chavot. It is Meunier-led - Meunier to the fore, with Chardonnay and Pinot Noir behind it - drawn from selected parcels across seven or so villages of the Coteaux Sud d'Épernay, the Côte des Blancs and the Vallée de la Marne. The backbone is a single base vintage rounded out with a large share of reserve wine, on the order of forty percent, held on its lees from earlier years. It is not the perpetual solera that feeds the Les 7 cuvée, just a deep, conventional reserve.

It is built the way Aurélien builds everything: spontaneous fermentation, mostly in wood (barrels, foudres and old wooden vats) with a little concrete, malolactic only partly let through, and ageing on the fine lees. The dosage sits low, six to eight grams, so it lands as a brut that is barely sweetened. Direct and fruit-driven, Meunier-juicy, with citrus, a little brioche and a chalky-saline edge - the everyday face of the estate, terroir before power. The name reads as 'ultra' plus 'tradition', though the domaine has never spelled it out.