All Things Champagne with Kevin Pike of Schatzi Wines

Please join us for an intimate Cellar Room gathering with one of our favorite Champagne importers, Schatzi, and a guided tasting and discussion of our favorite subject: Champagne.

Kevin Pike has been making the case for grower Champagne in this country longer than most people have been drinking it. He spent thirteen years at Skurnik working alongside Terry Theise, building out one of the most influential grower portfolios in the US, and in 2014 he left to found Schatzi with his close friend, Rheingau winemaker Johannes Leitz. Schatzi is the German word for little treasure, which tells you most of what you need to know about how the book is assembled: small, deliberate, built grower by grower around people who farm well and have something to say.

Kevin will be pouring and leading us through three of those growers, headlined by the wines of Pascal Doquet — one of the Côte des Blancs’ finest and most quietly uncompromising vignerons. Doquet took over his family’s domaine in Vertus in 1995, stopped all chemical treatment in 2000, established his eponymous estate in 2004 and has been certified organic since 2010. He farms just under nine hectares, including old-vine parcels in Vertus, Le Mont Aimé and Le Mesnil-sur-Oger, and he is far more interested in his vineyards than in anything that happens in the cellar. The wines show it: Blanc de Blancs of real tension and depth, chalk and energy in equal measure.

Two further producers from the Schatzi portfolio round out the lineup, announced soon.

This is a tasting built for comparison. We’ll pour the wines side by side and work through what separates them: village by village, soil by soil, hand by hand. Bring your questions — Kevin has spent decades with these growers, and he’s one of the best in the business at answering them.

Just 16 seats in the Cellar Room, so please act fast!