January 27th: Non-Vintage & Vintage Champagne: Through Three Growers
At Vinonueva | 5145 NE 2nd Ave, Miami, FL, 33137 | 7:00 pm-8:30 pm
Click HERE to get tickets
In partnership with De Maison Selections
This Walkthrough Tasting is set around a fundamental distinction in Champagne—Non-Vintage versus Vintage. We’ll look at this contrast through three grower-producers, allowing terroir, farming, and house philosophy to take center stage.
What is Non-Vintage Champagne?
Non-Vintage (often labeled NV) Champagne is the backbone of the region. It is crafted by blending wines from multiple harvest years to achieve a consistent house style year after year. Reserve wines, sometimes aged for many years, play a crucial role, adding depth, balance, and continuity.
For growers, Non-Vintage bottlings are often less about uniformity and more about expression: a snapshot of their vineyard and their personal approach to blending. These wines are typically the most immediate introduction to a producer’s identity.
What is Vintage Champagne?
Vintage Champagne is made exclusively from grapes harvested in a single year, and only in years deemed exceptional by the producer. Unlike Non-Vintage wines, vintage Champagnes are not about consistency—they are about character.
These wines reflect the climate, conditions, and personality of that specific harvest. They are often aged longer, built with structure in mind, and capable of evolving beautifully over time. In the grower context, vintage Champagne becomes a powerful statement of terroir and the vintage’s conditions, with very little intervention to soften the edges of the year.
ABOUT THE PRODUCERS
Waris-Larmandier
Avize & Chouilly | Côte des Blancs
Waris-Larmandier is a family-run grower Champagne rooted in Avize, at the heart of the Côte des Blancs, and represents one of the most compelling voices of Champagne’s next generation. Founded in 1989 by Marie-Hélène Larmandier and her husband Vincent Waris, the estate is now led by their eldest son, Jean-Philippe Waris, who took charge of the vineyards and winemaking in 2009 and began converting the family’s old-vine holdings to biodynamic farming shortly after.
Today, Jean-Philippe is joined by his siblings, Pierre-Louis, an architect, and Inès, a designer and sculptor. Together with their mother, they form the Racines de Trois, or “three roots” of Waris-Larmandier, each bringing a distinct perspective to the domaine’s vision. That creative energy carries through both the wines and the estate’s identity, from farming choices to label design.
Waris-Larmandier specializes in Blanc de Blancs Champagne, sourced primarily from old-vine Grand Cru Chardonnay in Avize, Chouilly, Cramant, Oger, and Le Mesnil-sur-Oger, with smaller parcels of Pinot Noir and Meunier in other parts of Champagne. Their style is understated, structured, and ultra-elegant, shaped by biodynamic farming, indigenous yeast fermentations, barrel aging, long lees contact, and a lower bottling pressure, resulting in a finer, creamier mousse and a distinctly gastronomic profile.
Their cuvée, Racines de Trois, reflects both the family and the vineyards: the contribution of the three siblings, the use of three grape varieties (Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and Meunier), and fruit sourced from three regions of Champagne—the Côte des Blancs, Montagne de Reims, and the Aube. Typically a two-vintage blend, it combines Chardonnay’s structure with the red-fruit character of the Pinots in a highly drinkable, balanced expression.
The most exciting chapter of the estate lies in its limited-production, single-vineyard vintage Champagnes, drawn from historic Grand Cru lieux-dits planted between the 1930s and 1970s. These wines are released only after extended aging and are produced in extremely small quantities, offering a precise, site-driven expression of place. Among them is Les Terres des Buissons, from old vines in Cramant, which highlights the depth and clarity that Waris-Larmandier seeks in its vintage wines.
Brocard Pierre
Celles-sur-Ource | Côte des Bar
Champagne Brocard Pierre is led by Thibaud Brocard, a fifth-generation vigneron based in Celles-sur-Ource, in the Côte des Bar—the southernmost and most Burgundian-influenced subregion of Champagne. Located in the Seine river valley, about an hour north of Chablis, the Côte des Bar sits at the crossroads between Champagne and Burgundy, sharing both history and geology with its southern neighbor.
After training in Burgundy, Thibaud returned to his family estate in 2012 with a clear vision: to make precise, terroir-driven Champagnes focused on purity, energy, and pleasure, without artifice. His wines are organic, low-sulfur, and vinified parcel by parcel, using native yeasts and minimal intervention. The goal is not technical perfection for its own sake, but wines that feel alive, honest, and deeply enjoyable at the table.
Brocard Pierre farms 11 distinct parcels across the Côte des Bar, working primarily with Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, and vinifies each separately. While his only blended cuvée is the Tradition Brut d’Assemblage, the heart of the domaine lies in his single-varietal, single-vintage Champagnes, which highlight both grape and site with remarkable clarity. These wines are aged extensively on the lees—often five years or more—resulting in depth, texture, and long, gastronomic finishes.
The soils of the Côte des Bar play a central role in Thibaud’s work. Vineyards here sit on Kimmeridgian and Portlandian limestone, the same Jurassic formations found in Chablis, lending the wines a distinctive tension, salinity, and mineral edge that sets them apart from northern Champagne. In the cellar, Thibaud favors stainless steel over oak to preserve this site's expression, works non-oxidatively, and keeps sulfur additions to an absolute minimum.
Brocard Pierre Champagnes offer a compelling contrast to the Côte des Blancs, and an essential perspective on how vintage, parcel, and place shape Champagne in a very different part of the region.
Christian Gosset
Aÿ | Vallée de la Marne
Champagne Christian Gosset is a deeply personal project shaped by over 35 years of experience and a lifelong connection to one of Champagne’s most celebrated villages: Aÿ. The Gosset family has been rooted here for more than 500 years, with records of winemaking dating back to 1584. Christian spent decades working alongside his brother at the family domaine Gosset-Brabant before, in 2015, choosing to begin a new chapter focused entirely on terroir-driven Champagne.
At the age of 50, Christian launched his own project with a clear goal: to exalt the great Pinot Noir terroirs of Aÿ without compromise. Working with just five hectares of vineyards, primarily classified as Grand Cru, he crafts wines that prioritize intensity, structure, and elegance. His first harvest took place in 2016, and his inaugural releases arrived in 2020—bringing to life the wines he had long envisioned.
Christian’s vineyards are planted exclusively to Pinot Noir, with an average vine age of over 45 years, naturally low yields, and exceptional concentration. Situated on the hillsides of Aÿ with mostly south and southwest exposures, the parcels span a mosaic of slopes, altitudes, and soils, creating remarkable diversity within a very small area. One of his most cherished sites, Loiselu, was planted in 1963 and exemplifies the power and complexity that define Aÿ.
Farming is pragmatic and respectful, with no herbicides, pesticides, or chemical treatments. In the cellar, each parcel is hand-harvested and vinified separately, pressed gently using a traditional Coquard press, and fermented in barrel with native yeasts. Christian works with a light hand, allowing the wines to ferment quietly and mature slowly, with all cuvées spending a minimum of three years on the lees.
Christian Gosset’s Champagnes are aromatic, powerful, and structured, yet always balanced by finesse and precision. Whether in his thoughtfully assembled non-vintage bottlings or his single-vineyard expressions, the wines carry a clear sense of place—showcasing the depth and authority of Grand Cru Pinot Noir from Aÿ, while remaining unmistakably gastronomic.
Check out the lineup for this tasting:
- Waris-Larmandier Champagne 'Racines de Trois' Brut NV
- Waris-Larmandier - Champagne Grand Cru 'Les Terres Des Buissons' 2014
- Brocard Pierre - Champagne Tradition d'Assemblage Brut NV
- Brocard Pierre - Champagne Bulles de Blancs Extra Brut 2015
- Christian Gosset Champagne Brut A02 Grand Cru
- Christian Gosset - Champagne Grand Cru Blanc de Pinot Noir, Aÿ 'Les Pierres Robert' 2019
Photo Credits: De Maison Selections