NV Bereche et Fils Campania Remensis Extra Brut

Originating in the village of Ormes at the foot of the Petit Montagne and immediately adjacent to Reims’ southwest city limit, you might expect Bereche’s NV Brut Rose Campania Remensis Disg. 11/2012 to favor Meunier; but in fact, 60% of it is Pinot and 30% Chardonnay. Red currant and cherry – shadowed by kirsch – mark the high-toned, penetrating nose of this rather obviously serious pink wine. With rose hip, quinine, and cherry pit serving as piquant adjuncts for the tart red berry fruit delivered on the palate and a suffusion of chalk in its gripping finish, this is all-in-all a bit austere but impressive and bound to prove fascinating at table over the next 2-3 years. And as Bereche disgorges bottles, year after year (perhaps even more often?!), I predict the list will rapidly grow of those whose “wish list” it adorns. Raphael Bereche began working with his father Jean-Pierre in 2004 – which was also (and probably not coincidentally) the year in which this estate went organic – and has gradually taken the lead. This estate has holdings in the area around their home base of Ludes; in the gravel and sand “Meunier” belt of the Petite Montagne de Reims; and around Mareuil-le-Port on the Left Bank of the Marne. Amazingly, other than the (far from) “basic” Brut and Extra Brut “Reserve” bottlings, all of the wines here are disgorged by hand after aging under cork rather than crown capsule, a luxury (and, true, to some small degree a risk) that applies to few Champagne estates today, and if at all, then usually only for a couple of their most expensive bottlings. This is also, I’m told, one of those precious few wine estates in any given region that perpetuates the work of massale selection from its old vines. Given that the Bereche wines do not “do malo” – though most wines see barrel – and are typically finished with very low dosage, it’s not so surprising that as a group they tend toward tartness and a certain austerity, but for the most part, that is well-buffered and subsumed into a complex whole. Except for their Brut Reserve – and the “Reflets d’Antan,” to which this notion doesn’t apply – all of the non-vintage Bereche wines I tasted on this occasion were from vintage 2009. They were, as a group, sharp as the proverbial tack, so I can imagine that in a year naturally high in acidity – notably malic – they may well draw blood! A Thomas Selection Paris (with various importers); fax 011-33-1-46-45-15-29; also imported by Petit Pois, Moorestown, NJ; tel. (856) 608-9644; and Transatlantic Bubbles, LLC, Woodbridge, CT; tel. (203) 464-0051