Pierre Gerbais, Champagne Extra Brut Grains de Celles, NV (1.5L) CS20230806 Pechstein is a celebrated Grosse

Pechstein is a celebrated Grosse Lage (Grand Cru) site with volcanic basalt soils that impart a distinctive smoky minerality

If you find a bottle

and the Cabernets it produced carry a real backbone of acid

decant for sediment and air

distilled in copper stills and rested briefly before bottling to let the flavors settle and integrate

Pierre Gerbais, Champagne Extra Brut Grains de Celles, NV (1.5L) CS20230806 Pechstein is a celebrated GrosseAurlien Gerbais went to wine school in Beaune, not Reims which makes sense, because if you grow up in the Aube you live closer to Burgundy than to the rest of Champagne. He worked with Olivier Lamy in St. Aubin, came home to Celles sur Ource, and still says he considers himself more Burgundian than Champenois. Grains de Celles is the flagship: Pinot Noir with Chardonnay and a full quarter Pinot Blanc, a grape almost nobody in Champagne bothers with