Legrand-Latour Champagne Ypresien [2019 Base] NV

More about Legrand-Latour

The arrival of Champagne Legrand-Latour is one of the most hotly anticipated wine moments of the last few years.

Produced in tiny quantities and already highly coveted, these wines were previously available only at a few top restaurants and wine shops in France. Now, they’re in New York for the very first time—and I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to share these extraordinary, ultra-unique, and extremely delicious wines with you.

At their core, these are soulful, expressive, profoundly terroir-driven wines. Thibault Legrand may be a new name, but the wines show levels of depth and detail that stand toe-to-toe with Champagne’s most respected growers. They're hugely aromatic, extremely mineral, and loaded with beautiful, ripe, vibrant fruit. They are worth every bit of the hype. These wines have the magic.

Following his family’s passion for geology (more on that in a moment), each of Thibault’s cuvées is crafted to reflect a specific geological stratum found in his vineyards, grounded in the belief that geology is the foundation of a wine’s identity. The wines are not named for villages or grapes, but for the geologic epochs expressed beneath the vines: Éocène, Yprésien, and Lutétien.

These wines are not just about place—they are about time.

They are Champagnes with clarity, structure, and energy—lively, mineral, and intensely saline, echoing the prehistoric ocean that once covered this land. For much of their history, the Legrand family farmed vines in the small Vallée de la Marne villages of Verneuil and Vandières, selling fruit to the local co-op. But everything changed when Thibault’s father, Patrice Legrand—a geology- and paleontology-obsessed grower—began digging, by hand, into the chalk behind the family home in the village of Fleury-la-Riviere.

He kept digging, further and further into the limestone, eventually excavating over a mile of caves deep into the heart of the slope yet remaining at street level. Some may have thought he was losing his mind. But what he unearthed was remarkable: a treasure trove of fossilized sea creatures, relics of the ancient sea that once submerged the Paris Basin some 45 million years ago. As each specimen was uncovered, Patrice left it in place. The hand-carved tunnels became part of a personal museum, now known as the Cave à Coquillages.

Touring the caves is an incredible voyage through the geological history of Champagne—and a chance to see some truly stunning fossils up close.

Thibault Legrand joined his father in the vines in 2007, and took over fully in 2012. After years of observation—and the influence of his childhood friend Flavien Nowack and mentor Fabrice Gass (Champagne Alexandre Filaine)—Thibault moved away from conventional farming and embraced a holistic approach, focused on rebuilding soil health and encouraging biodiversity. He stopped using herbicides, eliminated tractors, and adopted a low-/no-till system with full cover crops. The vineyards are brimming with life. The estate earned biodynamic certification in 2019.

In the cellar, the wines are vinified and aged in the same cold, deep chalk caves that house the fossil museum. Fermentations are done with native yeasts, with no additives except for sulfur used only as needed. The wines are moved by gravity—never pumped. Vins clairs age at least 12 months in barrel before bottling, followed by 30 to 40 months sur-lattes before disgorgement.

When Thibault needed more space to extend aging, Patrice picked up his headlamp and pickaxe and got to work. When I visited last summer, he was working away down a long, dark corridor, headlamp on, excavating by hand.

Thibault’s wines are a rare reminder that Champagne, at its most thoughtful, can serve as a marker of geological memory—a direct connection between the deep past and what’s in your glass.