Champagne Henriet-Bazin
On the eastern side of the Montagne de Reims there are two Grand Cru villages - Verzy and Verzenay - that have for centuries been known to produce superb quality grapes. Most of those grapes have historically gone into top-end Grand Marque negociant bottlings, so there have been few small grower-producers there that have achieved prominence. After kissing a good number of the requisite frogs over the years, we finally found the prince and princess, in the village of Villers-Marmery.
Marie-Noëlle and her husband Nicolas Rainon are the 4th generation in charge of the family estate - created when her great-grandparents married and combined the Henriet and Bazin vineyard holdings. She makes the wines, he runs the business end, and together they are doing exciting things with their 19 acres of vines - some 36 different plots in the contiguous villages of Verzenay, Verzy and Villers-Marmery.
Marie-Noëlle is a passionate winemaker, pursuing her art instinctively as she focuses on letting the terroir speak. Hers are clean, no-nonsense, no artifice wines, and over repeated tastings they consistently knocked my socks off. When the wines are this good, there's no debate. I just had to have them, period. Oh - and did I mention they are extremely limited? These bottlings are well known and popular in over a dozen countries in Europe, so they were only able to squeeze out small allocations or us.
We’re often amazed sometimes at how a winemaker might just pour a wine, then sit back and wait for their cue to do the next one. But not Nicolas and Marie-Noëlle. They are keenly interested in the opinions of others regarding their work. They claim it is the only way they can grow. This attitude is much like their Champagne--REFRESHING!