What hooked us about Thibault’s story isn’t just the wines—it’s the caves. His father, Patrice, became so obsessed with the fossilized shells he’d find in the vineyards that he began digging. What started as a weekend hobby became a miles-long, 300-meter-deep network of hand-carved caves (now a small museum) dedicated to sea life from ~45 million years ago, when this part of France was still under the ocean

Thibault joined his parents in 2007, selling fruit to the local co-op like his father and grandfather before him. Five years in, something clicked. All that ancient life underground connected to the living ecosystem he could build above ground. In 2012 he ditched herbicides and began the move to biodynamics, and by 2017 he took the leap, leaving the co-op to bottle his own wines.

The philosophy follows naturally. Thibault believes geology does the heavy lifting in a wine’s identity, so each cuvée maps to a Lutetian stratum. Yprésien takes its name from the period ~56–48 million years ago, shaped by alternating fresh- and sea-water deposits.It’s 75% Meunier, 25% Pinot Noir from Vandières and Verneuil, fermented with native yeasts, finished Brut Nature (0 g/L), raised a year in neutral oak, then 30–36 months under cork in those caves before disgorgement. In the glass, you taste the length  and savoriness that kind of patience buys.

Where did Thibault learn to make wine like this? From his childhood friend Flavien Nowack. Flavien has been quietly re-shaping his family’s estate since 2011. He started by converting to organic viticulture one parcel at a time, and vinifying those sites individually to better understand their unique terroir signature. This thoughtful, patient, focussed approach has made Flavien a bit of a cult figure among Champagne geeks. 

And when Thibault pressed his first wines in 2017, Flavien was there at the press.

Nowack’s commitment to the pure expression of his terroir goes deeper than nearly anyone. To really get it, it helps to geek out for a moment about fermentation. Champagne, famously, is made by putting low-alcohol wine through a second fermentation in a sealed bottle, so that yeast can eat sugar, making gas which is trapped and dissolves into the liquid. Most growers add cultured yeast and sugar. They add the elements so that they can be as precise as possible about the process and control the amount of gas in the final wine. 

But Nowack works on such a small scale, and is so all-round fastidious, that he has managed to make some of the most beautiful and precise wines in Champagne without adding anything. Instead of cultured yeasts, he uses the yeasts from the fruit in his own vineyards. And instead of adding sugar, he saves some of his own sugar-rich grape juice loaded with live active yeast cultures to use for bubble making. This is one of the many crazy techniques he taught Thibaut.

This release of the Sans Année shows Flavien’s house voice: 2021 base with reserve wines which reach back nearly a decade, 50% Meunier/50% Chardonnay, aging in barrels and foudres, and finished with just a whisper of dosage (1 g/L). The result of all this hard work is a wine that is both classic in style (brioche, fresh apple, dry but not severe), but also slightly lower pressure, with a more vinous, fine-textured mousse. While it has the Meunier spine, it also has Chardonnay lift; in fact, it feels almost weightless in the glass, yet with undeniable depth.