Béléna 2024

• Aburi Hotate
• Chili Crabs
• A quick one before your guests arrives

Wilfried Crochet left Lorraine at 18 and spent years working through Bordeaux, Champagne, Burgundy, the Rhône, Tasmania and Greece before coming back in 2016 to the five hectares his family had farmed in Bulligny since the 1990s. He came back because the limestone and clay under those vines is the same geological formation as the Côte des Blancs, and he had spent enough time in enough cellars to know what that should be worth.

The estate went fully organic in 2019. Harvest is by hand. Gamay, Pinot Noir, Auxerrois and Chardonnay are vinified parcel by parcel, and Wilfried decides after tasting what gets blended and what gets bottled alone. The sparkling wines follow the traditional method: still base wine, a second fermentation triggered inside the sealed bottle, then a long rest on the lees. The lees matter. Dead yeast cells break down slowly and give the wine a biscuit and brioche texture that cannot be replicated in a tank, however long you leave it. After riddling and disgorgement the wines go out with minimal dosage. Wilfried prefers extra brut, which keeps the wine close to what the limestone produces without sweetness covering anything over.

He left the Côtes de Toul AOC in 2004. The rules did not fit what he was making, so he stopped following them. Every bottle now carries Vin de France. Thirty thousand bottles a year, sold on allocation. Not a concession. A choice.