Champagne Caze-Thibaut Les Leriens Extra Brut

When Fabien Cazé was admitted into the Terres et Vins de Champagne collective — alongside Bérêche, Agrapart, and Chartogne-Taillet — after only his second release, it confirmed what the wines already argued: the western Marne Valley deserves parcel-level scrutiny. Les Leriens is the estate's multi-cépage parcellaire, blending approximately 45% Chardonnay, 45% Pinot Meunier, and 10% Pinot Noir from the 2.66-hectare holding split between Châtillon-sur-Marne's east-facing slopes and Vandières' south-facing terraces.

The soils are clay-limestone with sandy clay topsoil over shallow chalk bedrock — the chalk proximity driving the wire-tight mineral tension that defines the house. Fermentation is spontaneous with native yeasts, roughly half the juice transferred into 228–350 L neutral oak barrels inside a 19th-century vaulted chalk corridor in Venteuil, where ambient cold temperatures make malolactic conversion structurally impossible — a deliberate non-intervention that preserves raw malic acidity. No fining, no filtration; dosage fixed at ~2.7 g/L by blind tasting pre-disgorgement.

The 2018 vintage — the estate's first certified-organic harvest — delivered atypically opulent, full-bodied fruit for a house whose default register is austere and linear; the no-MLF discipline keeps the wine from tipping into softness, channelling that ripe year through a framework of unresolved acidity and chalk-driven salinity. Drink 2024–2030.