All wines
Bérêche & Fils
Rive Gauche
2020
4.3
Region
France › Champagne › Vallée de la Marne › Mareuil-le-Port › Champagne AOC
Type
white · traditional · sparkling · extra-brut
Grapes
Pinot Meunier
Alcohol
12.5%
Volume
750 mL
Dosage
2 g/L
Disgorged
2023-11
On lees
<36 months
Tasting Notes(1)
4.3
Sicilian orange, grapefruit, red and white currants, red flowers that feel slightly past their prime - there's something perfumed and complex here. The acidity is wonderful, electric really, with elegant layers that keep unfolding. Still quite young and charged with energy. This is 100% Meunier that drinks like it's got something to prove, and honestly? It succeeds. Beautiful stuff.
About
Rive Gauche is Bérêche's Vallee de la Marne Meunier bottling - 100% Pinot Meunier from a single roughly 2-hectare parcel in Mareuil-le-Port on the left bank of the Marne (that's the "rive gauche" of the cuvee name; the parcel itself is sometimes referenced by lieu-dit names like Maisonselle or Le Port a Bisson, depending on the source). Old vines, planted 1969. Vinified in oak; the prise de mousse is done under natural cork rather than crown cap, an old practice the house keeps for the top cuvees.
The 2020: vintage cuvee, around two-and-a-half years on lees, disgorged November 2023 as Extra Brut. Single-village Meunier still tends to be rare - most Meunier in Champagne goes into NV blends - and Bérêche's Rive Gauche is part of why people stopped writing the variety off as a filler grape.
