Anthocya (2023)

Anthocya is the rosé of Agrapart Avize, the house Fabrice Agrapart founded in 2020 with his partners Emmanuel Turpin and Johanna Bergsborn Bertilsson. From the 1980s Fabrice had run the family estate in Avize together with his brother Pascal, whose wines continue under Agrapart. The new house gave every cuvée a name starting with A; this one comes from the anthocyanins, the red pigments of grape skins.

The house is precise about what the wine is not: neither a saignée rosé nor a rosé made by blending in red wine. Chardonnay from Le Mesnil-sur-Oger makes up 98 percent, and the colour comes only from the anthocyanins of a 2 percent share of Pinot Noir from Vertus, through a winemaking method Fabrice devised himself. The house calls it a rosé de blancs and does not publish how the method works.

In the cellar, fermentation runs on indigenous yeasts, malolactic goes through in full, and the wine rests on its fine lees in a single oak vat, the oak coming from the Montagne de Reims. It was bottled in July 2024 without fining or filtration, under a cork held by a staple rather than a crown cap, then spent 20 to 24 months on its lees with riddling by hand. Every bottle is smelled at disgorgement, at least 60 days before it is released.

The house's still rosé, Aurora from Les Busons in Cramant, uses the same split of 98 percent Chardonnay to 2 percent Pinot Noir.