BdN d2026

Robert Fleury created this cuvée in 1955 as the house's "cuvée tradition". It kept that role for more than half a century, and in 2010 it took the name Blanc de Noirs Brut. The family farms about fifteen hectares on the slopes around Courteron, in the Côte des Bar, most of it Pinot Noir.

What sets the cuvée apart is its reserve. Since 2007 the family has kept back part of each blend as reserve for the next year, in eight 60-hectolitre oak foudres that came from Cognac. They sit three metres up, under the roof timbers of the "galerie des foudres". The Fleurys call it an inverted solera. It is inverted in proportion, because the house describes the latest harvest as the larger part, about 70% to 30% reserve, give or take ten points a year. And it is inverted in space, because the casks are raised off the ground instead of standing on it.

This bottle's back label names harvests for only half the blend: 2020 at 35% and the latest, 2021, at just 15%. The rest it leaves to reserve wines raised in the foudres. That is far from the 70/30 the house describes, though its own sheet for the 2020 tirage already gave the young harvest as only 45%.

Earlier releases went out as Brut, at 4.9 g/L for the 2018 tirage and 3.2 g/L for the 2020 one, both already within Extra Brut range. This one says Extra Brut on the label, at 3.4 g/L.

The house says the cuvée spends four years sur lattes. By its label this bottle went into the cellar in July 2022 and was disgorged in April 2026, close to that. The labels of the d2025 release give the same blend, bottled in November 2022 and disgorged in March 2025, after about 28 months. On paper they are one wine. What separates them is seventeen months on the lees.