The cuvée name says it plainly: "At the Dawn of the Côte des Bar." "Aube" means ‘dawn’ in French –  a fitting (and typically French) pun.  It's also a reminder that this estate has been rooted in this soil for over a century, and is now part of its broader renaissance. Louise Brison bought her first vines in 1910 with almost nothing. Four generations later, her great-granddaughter Delphine Brulez runs the domaine.

Delphine is a trained enologist (master's from Dijon), and her approach has more in common with Burgundy than with the big Champagne houses up north. She isn’t afraid to barrel ferment and uses old Burgundy barrels, presses with an old-fashioned, labor-intensive, wooden basket press, and performs four pressings instead of the usual three for a finer separation of the juice. Of the estate's 15 hectares, only the best third goes into bottle. Every wine is single-vintage. This is someone doing things the hard way on purpose, and it shows.

The wine is a 50/50 blend of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, fermented with native yeasts, aged nine months in barrel, and bottled with zero dosage. Delphine blocks malolactic fermentation entirely, preserving the wine's natural acidity and tension. On paper, that combination (no malo, no dosage, Kimmeridgian limestone) could be pretty fierce: all nerve and angles. 

But she balances it with at least five years on the lees (during which the autolysis of the yeast gives the wine complexity, depth and roundness), and barrel élevage (which gives yet other dimensions and texture). Those two elements, time and wood, give the wine shape and generosity, while allowing its mineral core to come into its own. The Chardonnay, meanwhile, brings lift and citrus brightness alongside the Pinot's broader structure. Expect precision and complexity here, a wine that rewards patience in the glass as its layers slowly unfold. It's a natural with oysters or seafood, but has enough depth for roast chicken or a rich fish dish.

If Louise Brison is a story of generational continuity, Marie Courtin is one of creation. Dominique Moreau founded the estate in 2005 and named it for her grandmother, whom she describes as "a strong woman of the earth." The vines themselves have some history (her father-in-law planted them in the 1970s using massale selection, so there's real genetic diversity in the vineyard), but the label, the philosophy, and the vision are entirely Dominique's.

And her vision is uncompromising. Every wine she makes is single vineyard, single variety, single vintage, zero dosage. She farms biodynamically (certified Demeter) and is deeply attentive to the energies of her site (she famously uses pendulums to track the evolution of grapes and wine). Her estate is tiny, just 2.5 hectares producing perhaps 12,000 to 15,000 bottles across all cuvées. 

In contrast to Brison’s 50/50 blend, Résonance (named for what Dominique describes as the balancing energies of earth and sky) is 100% Pinot Noir. The fruit, which comes from the top of her hillside parcel where topsoil is thinnest and the limestone is most exposed, is fermented with native yeasts in stainless steel. Dominique allows malolactic fermentation to happen naturally, gives the wine about 24 months on the lees before disgorgement without dosage. 

Where Delphine uses barrel and extended lees aging to round out the severity of malic acidity and Kimmeridgian minerality, Dominique takes the opposite path: instead of blocking malolactic fermentation, she allows the process to soften the wine’s acidity naturally (transforming the malic acid into softer lactic acid), but keeps everything else stripped back. Steel, no wood. Shorter time on the lees. Pure Pinot, no Chardonnay for lift. The result is more immediate and direct, with a rounder acid profile. But the thin topsoil and exposed rock give it a briny, saline intensity that stays with you. 

This is a wine that's more overtly vinous, more Pinot in character, and yet does everything you could ever want a Champagne to do. It pairs beautifully with everything from oysters to rich seafood to aged cheese (and almost anything in between).