There is a hierarchy of fame in Champagne that has very little to do with quality. The great houses occupy the top floor — not because their wines are necessarily the finest, but because their marketing budgets are the largest. Below them, a smaller constellation of celebrated grower names attracts its own devoted following. And then, doing extraordinary work in the relative obscurity of a little-known sub-region south of Épernay, you find Laherte Frères.
Antonio Galloni of Vinous has called these “some of the most compelling wines in all of Champagne.” Jérôme Prévost — a grower who knows Pinot Meunier more intimately than almost anyone alive — has said much the same thing. The Guide de la Revue du Vin de France recently awarded the estate a second star, citing the precision, complexity, and emotional resonance of the cuvées. Even the cautious French establishment, it seems, has run out of reasons to wait.
Let’s catch up.
A Family Estate Seven Generations Deep
The story begins in 1889, when Jean-Baptiste Laherte planted vines in the village of Chavot — a hamlet so understated it eventually had to merge with the slightly larger Courcourt just to appear on most maps. It was an act of faith in difficult terroir, and the family has been building on that faith ever since.
Seven generations later, the domaine is led by Aurélien Laherte, who joined his father Thierry and uncle Christian in 2002 and took formal control in 2005, barely into his twenties. What he inherited was an estate of admirable ambition: roughly ten hectares across seventy-five parcels in ten different villages. What he has built since is something closer to a philosophical system for understanding wine. The estate now covers twelve hectares spread across eighty-five parcels in twelve villages, with all seven of the Champagne region’s permitted varieties under cultivation — not just Meunier, Chardonnay, and Pinot Noir, but also Pinot Blanc, Pinot Gris, Arbanne, and Petit Meslier, the ancient grapes that most producers abandoned in the pursuit of commercial predictability.
That decision to retain the rare varieties tells you something fundamental about the Laherte approach. This is a producer interested in truth, not convenience. And crucially, Galloni notes, it is not only the top-tier single-parcel wines that deliver: the entry-level Ultradition range offers quality and value that is increasingly difficult to match anywhere in the appellation.
The Coteaux Sud d’Épernay: Champagne’s Most Underrated Terroir
To understand why Laherte’s wines taste the way they do, you first need to understand where they come from — and the Coteaux Sud d’Épernay is a region that demands careful explanation, because it is consistently overlooked.
The zone sits to the south and southwest of Épernay, at the geographic crossroads between two of Champagne’s most celebrated areas: the Côte des Blancs to the east and the Vallée de la Marne to the north. In the wine world’s mental map, it falls between those two markers and is consequently forgotten by both. That is a mistake of some magnitude.
The chalk here is geologically distinct from the hard belemnite chalk of the Côte des Blancs. It is softer, more friable — the kind of chalk that crumbles between the fingers — and it is typically buried under fifty centimetres to a full metre of clay, often interleaved with silex, limestone, schist, and marl. The result is a soil profile of extraordinary complexity, producing wines that occupy genuinely different stylistic territory from their more celebrated neighbours.
Aurélien has articulated the paradox beautifully: the clay content gives his Chardonnay more roundness and flesh than you find on the Côte des Blancs, while the chalk beneath lends his Pinot Meunier a finesse and precision that the clay-heavy Marne Valley cannot match. The wines live, in a sense, in productive tension between the two famous zones on either side — drawing freshness from one and generosity from the other, without being a pale imitation of either.
More than sixty per cent of Laherte’s vines are rooted in this terroir. Within the village of Chavot alone, Aurélien has mapped fifteen or more distinct geological expressions, each vinified separately to preserve what the soil actually has to say. This is Burgundian thinking applied rigorously to Champagne, and it shows in the glass.
Biodynamics at Scale: A Heroic Commitment
Managing twelve hectares across eighty-five parcels in twelve villages is, under any viticultural regime, a logistical challenge. Doing it biodynamically is something closer to a vocation.
Laherte began converting to organic viticulture in 2005, with biodynamic management expanding across the parcels that could practically accommodate the intensive labour requirements — the principal obstacle with outlying plots being simple distance. Seven hectares are now certified biodynamic; the remainder are farmed organically without chemical inputs. The estate was formally certified organic from 2010, though a devastating mildew season in 2016 forced the use of fungicide and the certification lapsed. Rather than quietly omitting this, Laherte acknowledges it openly. The farming philosophy is intact; the paperwork, for a season, was not. That kind of honesty is worth noting.
Sélection massale underpins the replanting programme — vine material selected from within the estate’s own population rather than purchased from commercial nurseries. The oldest parcels contain ungrafted vines planted between 1947 and 1953, biological archives of a pre-industrial Champagne that inform some of the most compelling wines in the range.
The Cellar: Terroir Made Wine
Aurélien trained under Antoine Sélosse, an influence that runs through every decision made at Laherte. The Sélosse principle — that Champagne is a wine first, and everything else second — manifests here in an approach that is simultaneously restrained and technically fearless.
Around eighty per cent of the harvest is fermented and aged in wood: approximately three hundred and fifty old oak barrels, six casks, and a single truncated-cone tank. Natural yeasts do the fermentation work across most of the range. Malolactic conversion is handled wine by wine — Chardonnay frequently skips it to preserve tension; Meunier often completes it to build texture and volume. Reserve wines, incorporated at around forty per cent in the non-vintage blends, are drawn partly from a perpetual solera system of older Burgundy barrels that Aurélien began in 2005. The result is blends with historical depth that a single-vintage approach simply cannot achieve.
Dosage is kept deliberately minimal — extra brut at most, brut nature at the ambitious end — and disgorgement dates appear on every bottle. In a region where transparency about when a wine left the cellar is still far from universal, this matters.
The Wines: A Closer Look
Ultradition Extra Brut NV (2022 Base)
The house blend and the entry point, though “entry point” undersells it considerably. Eight parcels across the Coteaux Sud d’Épernay and Vallée de la Marne contribute Meunier (sixty per cent), Chardonnay (thirty per cent), and Pinot Noir (ten per cent), with forty per cent reserve wine drawn from 2021 and 2020. Fermentation spans multiple vessel types — old barrels, foudre, a tronconique concrete cask — and malolactic conversion runs at around sixty to seventy per cent. Disgorged with 4.5 g/L dosage. Galloni finds it lifted and aromatic, with crushed flowers, chamomile, almond, and dried herbs, noting that the wine opens and fills out with air in the glass. An exceptional introduction to what this estate is doing, and a reference point for Meunier-led Champagne at this price level.
Blanc de Blancs Brut Nature NV (2022 Base)
One hundred per cent Chardonnay from the estate’s chalkiest sites in Chavot and Épernay, with more recent additions from Premier Cru parcels in Vertus and Voipreux on the Côte des Blancs. The soils here — chalk and chalky clay with pockets of flint and schist — drive the wine’s defining characteristic: a vivid, saline minerality that is almost geological in its directness. Forty per cent reserve wine; zero dosage; released with additional bottle age. In his tasting note, Galloni describes the wine as soft, open-knit, and creamy despite the absence of dosage, with dried citrus, tangerine oil, mint, and chamomile on a long, refined finish. For those who find most Blanc de Blancs lacking texture, this is the answer.
Rosé de Meunier NV (2022 Base)
A Meunier vinified three ways — sixty per cent pressed as a white wine (with a third of this component aged as reserve in barrel), thirty per cent as a saignée rosé, and ten per cent as a full red wine — blended into something that defies the conventions of the category. Vines averaging twenty-five years for the white component, forty-plus years for the rosé and red. Disgorged June 2025 with a dosage of just 2.5 g/L. Galloni calls it a total delight, citing the balance between ripe cherry fruit, leather, dried flowers, and an underlying savoury precision that is all finesse and class. In a market where rosé Champagne has become increasingly expensive and increasingly generic, this stands apart.
Blanc de Noirs Brut Nature NV (2023 Base)
A newer addition to the range, and a stunning one. Equal parts Pinot Noir from Le Breuil in the Marne Valley and Pinot Meunier from Chavot and Moussy in the Coteaux Sud d’Épernay, vinified naturally and aged in barrel and foudre, with full malolactic conversion and zero dosage. The wine brings together the supple fruit of Meunier, the structural depth of Pinot Noir, and the saline chalk minerality of the estate’s home terroir. Vivid, deep in colour, flush with red fruit and chalk on the nose, with tensile energy and a long, mouthwatering finish. Disgorged April 2025.
Premier Cru Nature de Craie NV (2021 Base)
One of the most intellectually interesting wines in the range, and one of the most technically demanding to produce. A sans soufre — zero added sulphur — Blanc de Blancs from Premier Cru parcels in Vertus and Voipreux, sourced from vines planted in 1960, 1965, and 1987. Aurélien began experimenting with sulphur-free vinification some years ago, and concluded that the critical conditions for stability were zero dosage and full malolactic conversion — a combination that, together with the natural protective properties of the chalk terroir, allows the wine to evolve without intervention. Vinified in neutral oak, aged on cork for twelve months, disgorged in April 2023 without dosage. Galloni describes it as a rich, vinous Champagne of real textural depth and intensity — powerful, needing air, and now ready to drink. A wine that challenges the assumption that zero-sulphur Champagne is inherently fragile.
Les Grandes Crayères 2019
The reference single-vintage Blanc de Blancs, and arguably the wine that best demonstrates what Laherte can do when a great vintage and great terroir coincide. Two chalk-dominant parcels in Chavot, vines of forty-plus years, a west-facing hillside with barely twenty centimetres of topsoil over Campanian chalk. Indigenous yeast fermentation in old barrels three to ten years of age; no malolactic conversion; thirty months on lees; a further nine months post-disgorgement before release; dosage under 4 g/L; hand disgorged. Galloni rates it ninety-three points and describes it as bright, focused, and vibrant, with all the elements in beautiful balance — noting it would benefit from at least another year or two in the cellar, such is the wine’s underlying tension. For those who equate Champagne with occasion, this is the occasion.
The Collective Spirit
No portrait of Laherte is complete without the Terres et Vins collective — the grouping of progressive growers that Aurélien co-founded with childhood friend Raphaël Bérèche in 2009. The organisation brings together some of the most thoughtful producers in Champagne — Agrapart, Chartogne-Taillet, Marie-Courtin, Benoit Lahaye, Vincent Laval — for an annual tasting of vins clairs and finished wines. It is a public declaration that there is a different way to make Champagne: one grounded in place, vine health, and honest expression of what the land actually produces.
That declaration has aged well. The collective has become something of a standard-bearer for the grower movement, and Laherte has become one of its most prominent voices.
Why This Matters
At Fat Cork, we spend a great deal of time thinking about what Champagne is actually for — and we believe its highest purpose is to tell you something about where it comes from. The great houses do many things brilliantly, but terroir expression is rarely among their primary concerns. The grower movement has changed that conversation, and Laherte Frères is now one of its defining voices.
The Wine Advocate’s Kristaps Karklins describes these as chiselled, characterful wines built on thoughtful farming — wines that appeal to those who appreciate precision and incisive acidity. That is accurate. But it is also worth adding that they are generous wines, wines with texture and depth alongside their energy, wines that reward patience but are also genuinely pleasurable young.
And they are, relative to their quality, still fairly priced. Galloni’s observation that the entry-level wines offer quality and value competitive within their peer group is not a consolation — it is a signal. These wines are at a level that justifies serious attention, and that attention is growing.
The time to discover Laherte Frères is now, before the world fully catches up.
Champagne Laherte Frères is available through Fat Cork. The full range — including the Ultradition Extra Brut, Blanc de Blancs Brut Nature, Rosé de Meunier, Blanc de Noirs, Nature de Craie, and Les Grandes Crayères — is in stock now. Enquiries welcome.
