Grapes: 100% Chardonnay

The Champagne house of Pascal Agrapart is located in the celebrated village of Avize in the heart of the Côte de Blancs. The estate previously known as Agrapart & Fils was established in 1894, yet unlike many of the smaller grower Champagne houses that have only begun to estate bottle under their own labels in recent decades, the Agrapart family have done so since the inception of the domaine. The winery was founded by Arthur Agrapart, and is now run by the fifth generation of the family, Ambroise Agrapart, who joined his father Pascal in the 2018 vintage.

The Agrapart offering is rounded out by a micro-cuvee known as "Expérience," the word for "experiment" in French and rarest of the Agrapart wines. Experience is made through a risky and complicated process that includes only grapes - no yeast, sulfur or sugar are added at any point in vinification, ageing or at disgorgement. To accomplish this, Agrapart takes a base wine and adds unfermented pressed grape juice from the following vintage as the prise de mousse to launch the secondary fermentation. Today, many producers in the region are experimenting with this approach, now dubbed The Agrapart Method. This tiny cuvee is not made every year, but only made when two successive vintages create the ideal conditions for making this cuvee.

Per Galloni: "The NV Brut Nature Blanc de Blancs Exp. 20 is breathtaking. White flowers, mint, chalk, lemon oil and mint are all beautifully sculpted in this intensely saline, statuesque Champagne. This is so gorgeous and expressive. Some early vinetages of this bottling were a bit unfocused, especially in the aromatics. That is far from the case today. The Exp. 20 is essentially the Aviziose wine of that vintage, but bottled with fresh grape juice form the 2021 harvest in place of the sugar and yeast that are typically added for the prise de mousse (the secondary fermentation that takes place in bottle). This release is magical."

Galloni: 98 Points