For lovers of the sparkling wines made the old school way, Les Capriades need no instruction. They produce what are considered by many to be the best method ancestral wines (pet-nats) anywhere in the world.

Les Capriades is the brainchild of Pascal Potaire. For a long time he made wine for other growers (Nicolas Renard, Noella Morantin, etc...). After a while he decided to start out on his own and founded Les Capriades in the early 2000s, at first alone and then eventually joined by his friend Moses Gadouche.

Obsessed with balance, low alcohol, and high acidity, his mission became to bring the elegance and finesse of great Champagne to the world of naturally fermented sparkling wine. He is happiest in the cellar, keeping a close eye on his juice and maintaining his impeccable cellar, the quotidian tasks that make Les Capriades the pinnacle for méthode ancestrale sparkling wines.

Les Capriades is located within the Touraine appellation, in the town of Faverolles-sur-Cher. Designated “négociant vinificateur,” they buy the majority of their grapes, which they harvest themselves from a handful of local organic growers around Faverolles. The soils here feature silex and clay with limestone subsoil, which of course helps the wines attain their crunchy mineral backbone.

The process of making méthode ancestrale sparkling wine seems incredibly simple but is actually rather difficult. First, there’s extensive sorting in the vines. The wines are produced without sulfur and thus the grapes themselves have to be perfect. Any flaw in the fruit will be amplified in the wine. The juice begins to ferment in tank, and at the opportune moment, mid-fermentation, the wines are bottled to complete their fermentation under a crown cap, trapping carbonic gas and giving them their soft, frothy bubbles. It’s both an art and a science.

The wines are riddled before disgorgement using a giropallet, and are disgorged by hand, in some cases twice due to the large amount of deposit in the bottle. The resulting wines are elegant and complex, with rich, persistent bubbles and subtle aromas and flavor that are carried on waves of minerality and acidity. Les Capriades continues to build and maintain their unassailable reputation as the best Domaine making this style of sensitive, yet highly satisfying sparkling wine.