Les Revenants (2022)

Les Revenants - 'the ones who come back' - is Calsac's homage to the grapes Champagne almost forgot. The region allows seven varieties but built its name on a handful; this cuvée revives three of the near-vanished ones - Pinot Blanc, Petit Meslier and Arbane - from a single south-facing plot called le Four, up at Montgenost in the Côte de Sézanne, where sand sits over chalk. He planted the three heritage varieties there in 2010, and the blend shifts a little from one release to the next.

It is fermented and aged in wood, with native yeasts and malolactic carried through, bottled unfiltered and finished bone-dry as an extra-brut after an extended spell on the lees. The varieties give it a shape you rarely meet in Champagne - the Petit Meslier's cut, the Arbane's perfume, the Pinot Blanc's flesh - which is exactly the point.