Bereche Coteaux Champenois Grand Cru Ay Blanc 2022

Bérêche Coteaux Champenois Grand Cru Blanc Aÿ 2022 is a rare still white wine from one of Champagne’s most coveted Grand Cru villages. Crafted in tiny quantities, it offers a crystalline, terroir-driven expression of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir grown on chalky slopes usually reserved for top-tier Champagne. This is Champagne country viewed through a different lens: pure, precise and quietly profound.

Tasting Notes
In the glass, the wine shows a pale straw to light gold hue with glints of green, reflecting its youth and tension. The nose is finely etched and mineral, opening with chalk dust, lemon zest and white grapefruit, then unfurling notes of green apple, pear skin, white flowers and a faint suggestion of almond and fresh bread dough. With air, subtle hints of stone fruit and crushed oyster shell emerge, underscoring its Grand Cru origin. On the palate, it is taut, focused and deeply saline, with a spine of bright citrus (lemon, yuzu, lime peel) wrapped around a core of crunchy orchard fruit. The Pinot component quietly adds texture and a gentle, almost red-fruited undertone, giving the mid-palate extra depth without ever feeling heavy. The finish is long, linear and mouthwatering, marked by chalky minerality and a delicate, slightly spicy nuance. While already vivid and expressive in its youth, the 2022 has the structure and acidity to evolve beautifully over 5–8 years, gaining more nutty, brioche and honeyed complexity with time in bottle.

Production
Sourced from Grand Cru vineyards around Aÿ in the heart of the Champagne region, this wine reflects steep, chalk and limestone-rich slopes that are ideally suited to Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. Bérêche works with meticulous, low-intervention viticulture, favoring low yields, hand-harvesting and careful sorting to ensure only perfectly ripe and healthy fruit makes it to the cellar. Vinification for their Coteaux Champenois focuses on purity and texture: gentle pressing, spontaneous fermentation with native yeasts, and élevage in a mix of neutral barrels and/or small tanks to preserve the wine’s precision while adding subtle complexity. Sulfur is used judiciously, and the wine is bottled with an emphasis on expressing the site rather than overt winemaking signatures.

Food & Serving
This Grand Cru still Champagne wine is a superb partner for refined, subtly flavored dishes. Think oysters, scallop crudo, turbot, sole meunière, sushi and sashimi, as well as light poultry dishes with lemon and herbs, or simple pasta with butter and parmesan. It also shines alongside goat cheese, young Comté or a lightly aged Gruyère, where its acidity and minerality cut through richness. Serve well-chilled but not icy, ideally at 10–12°C, to allow the aromatics and texture to fully emerge. A brief decant of 15–20 minutes, or simply opening the bottle a little before serving, can help the wine open up and reveal additional layers.

Producer
Bérêche et Fils is one of Champagne’s most respected grower-producers, long admired by enthusiasts for its combination of traditional craftsmanship and thoughtful innovation. Based in the Montagne de Reims with key holdings in renowned villages such as Aÿ, the family estate has steadily built a reputation for terroir-focused wines that highlight individual sites and meticulous vineyard work. Over recent decades, the new generation at Bérêche has been instrumental in championing lower yields, careful farming and precise, minimal-intervention winemaking, placing the domaine among the region’s benchmark artisanal producers. Their still Coteaux Champenois wines, produced in very limited quantities, are especially prized for the way they reveal the underlying character of Champagne’s greatest terroirs without the influence of bubbles.

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