Dear Insider,
You
really want to know whether a Champagne is special? Send it to the sommelier at a Michelin two-star restaurant. See how they react.
I gave a bottle of Maurice Grumier’s Réserve Perpétuelle to Molly Greene, the sommelier at San Francisco’s MICHELIN two-star Saison, as a thank you for appearing on our podcast. I’ve loved this wine ever since we started direct-importing it two years ago, and I couldn’t help but hope that Molly, who has a stellar palate AND curates one of the best Champagne lists in the country—boasting iconic producers like Krug, Sélosse, Agrapart, and Egly-Ouriet—would be just as impressed.
She called the next week. And she asked if we could spare any bottles to put on her list.
This wine now has a place of honor among the greatest Champagnes in the world, and it deserves it.
Made using the same solera system that produces Jacques Sélosse’s four-digit-priced bottles, it’s pure luxury, striking a perfect balance between breadth and focus. For fans of fuller, richer styles of Champagne, this is a must-have.
The opulence and complexity of this bottle, coupled with the stunning price, is what made us commit to direct-importing as much as we could as a Wine Access exclusive.
Aside from the list at Saison (where it’s $248) and a few other top restaurants, you’ll only find this Champagne here at Wine Access. And it’s just $50, down to $47 per bottle on six or more.
Click here to claim your share. Despite nearly 300 years of prominence in the Marne Valley, selling grapes to houses like Perrier-Jouët and Taittinger as well as crafting their own small-lot bottlings, Grumier had seldom reached the US. We were tipped off to the winery by a friend—a Master of Wine who wrote the book on vintage Champagne. After we tasted the Réserve Perpétuelle, we understood what had him so excited.
Grumier makes the Réserve Perpétuelle using a solera. This uncommon, expensive form of winemaking involves holding vintages in barrel for years, then combining them in various portions to make up a bottling. The winery started their solera in 2005, and this bottle (which comprises equal parts Pinot Meunier, Pinot Noir, and Chardonnay) consists of 60% base wine from the 2019 vintage blended with 40% reserve wines.
Bottled in 2020 yet disgorged recently, it’s an expressive, decade-spanning tapestry showing aromas of red and green apples, yellow flowers, chalk, poached pear, brioche, coriander, and toasted nuts. Each sip reveals layers of fresh and baked fruit, exotic spices, toast, and hazelnuts, all underpinned by a refreshing minerality.
This is an extraordinary wine from one of Champagne’s best-kept secrets—a bottle that no lover of first-class bubbly should miss.
