![Bottle of Champagne Clandestin, Boreal Blanc de Noirs Brut Nature, NV[2022] - Sparkling Wine - Flatiron Wines & Spirits - New York](http://nyc.flatiron-wines.com/cdn/shop/files/Champagne-Clandestin-Boreal-Blanc-de-Noirs-Brut-Nature-NV-2022-Sparkling-Wine-Flatiron-Wines-Spirits-New-York_{width}x.jpg?v=1757687957)
![Bottle of Champagne Clandestin, Austral Blanc de Noirs Brut Nature, NV[2022] - Sparkling Wine - Flatiron Wines & Spirits - New York](http://nyc.flatiron-wines.com/cdn/shop/files/Champagne-Clandestin-Austral-Blanc-de-Noirs-Brut-Nature-NV-2022-Sparkling-Wine-Flatiron-Wines-Spirits-New-York_{width}x.jpg?v=1757687958)
JUNE 2025
From the Aube to Aÿ: A Tale of Two Pinots
This month, we’re picking up right where we left off in May. If you recall, we explored the Aube, Champagne’s southern frontier—a place that feels more like Chablis than Reims, and where the Champagne's Grower revolution is thriving. We looked at how Chardonnay performs in Montgueux’s chalky soils, and how Pinot Noir finds a softer, more expressive voice in the Kimmeridgian clay-limestone of the Côte des Bare (the Aube’s most famous subregion).
Now we turn our attention fully to Pinot Noir, tasting two radically different expressions from two radically different terroirs. One comes from that same Aube region—a rising-star crafting Pinot with an emphasis on soil transparency and focused energy. The other comes from Aÿ, a classic village at the heart of Champagne, where the Montagne de Reims meets the Marne. Aÿ is up there with Bouzy as one of the most prestigious terroirs for Pinot Noir in all of Champagne, where power, depth, and pedigree define the wine.
These aren’t just two different wines. They’re two philosophies, two landscapes (about a two hour drive apart!), and two ways of understanding what Pinot Noir can be when it’s given time, place, and thoughtful stewardship.
![Bottle of Champagne Clandestin, Boreal Blanc de Noirs Brut Nature, NV[2022] - Sparkling Wine - Flatiron Wines & Spirits - New York](http://nyc.flatiron-wines.com/cdn/shop/files/Champagne-Clandestin-Boreal-Blanc-de-Noirs-Brut-Nature-NV-2022-Sparkling-Wine-Flatiron-Wines-Spirits-New-York.jpg?v=1757687957)
EXTRA BRUT PICK NO. 1
Champagne Clandestin is the brainchild of Benoît Doussot, a young, Burgundy-born winemaker now based in the Aube. Unlike many Champagne growers, Benoît didn’t inherit vineyards; instead, he launched his project in 2015 by partnering with a group of organically certified growers farming underappreciated, co-op-bound parcels in the Côte des Bar. His vision: to explore soil and exposition as the primary tools of expression. Every year, he bottles two Pinot Noirs—Boréal, from north-facing slopes, and Austral, from south-facing ones (the guy knows his Latin)—highlighting how dramatically sunlight and exposition can shape the same grape. This month’s wine is Boréal, drawn from cool, north-facing mid-slope vineyards rooted in Kimmeridgian limestone—a different geological story than the chalky terroirs of Champagne’s north, but the same one as in Chablis, where only Chardonnay is grown.
Doussot’s style blends influence with invention. He trained under Jean-Philippe Fichet in Meursault, whose cellar is a shrine to precision and whose wines are benchmarks of mineral clarity. He then spent four years at Vouette & Sorbée, the cult grower estate in the Aube run by Bertrand Gautherot, where he deepened his understanding of the potential of Pinot Noir in this overlooked southern zone. You can feel both influences in Boréal: the Burgundian textural finesse, and the Champenois focus on soil transparency.
Fermented with native yeasts and aged for a year in large 600L French oak barrels (not small barriques), Boréal then rests over 15 months in bottle on the lees—the spent yeast cells that build texture and complexity—before being released with no added sugar at disgorgement. We think you’ll find it lean and lifted—and quite saline, like Chablis, except Pinot Noir, and with bubbles! This is Pinot Noir shaped by cool air and ancient marine sediment—an Aube wine through and through, and a compelling counterpoint to the chalk of Aÿ.
EXTRA BRUT PICK NO. 2
If Clandestin shows us Pinot Noir shaped by Kimmeridgian marl and cool air, Gatinois offers a masterclass in what happens when Pinot meets the deep chalk soils and warm, sun-soaked hillsides of Aÿ. This Grand Cru village is one of Champagne’s most celebrated terroirs for Pinot Noir, long coveted by the Grandes Marques and home to names like Bollinger and Gosset. It’s also where the Gatinois family has been growing Pinot Noir for over 300 years.
Today, under the twelfth-generation stewardship of Louis Gatinois, the domaine is bottling more of its own wine than ever before—around 3,300 cases annually—while still selling part of its crop to Bollinger.
The estate farms just over seven hectares of south-facing hillside vineyards in Aÿ, planted on a mix of chalk and clay-limestone. Are we in the Montagne de Reims or in the Marne Valley? Aÿ is right on the border and nobody can agree on its exact zone.
Stylistically though, it’s closer to the Montagne. You have Pinot with body, power, and depth—but always lifted by the nervy, limestone backbone of the subsoils. The Brut Tradition blends 80% Pinot Noir and 20% Chardonnay, aged sur lattes (on those lees!) for two years, then finished with 7 g/L dosage. Fermentation is done entirely in stainless steel, with full malolactic, allowing the purity of the fruit and site to come through without distraction.
This release (based on the 2020 vintage with 30% reserve wines) is vinous and textured, clean and focused—classic Aÿ, with a mineral drive that balances the wine’s inherent richness. If you want to understand Montagne chalk Pinot—the muscle and the grace—this bottle delivers it without compromise.
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GROWER CHAMPAGNE
A guide to the best bubbles in the world and what makes them different from the Grandes Marques
Champagne is the world’s most famous sparkling wine. Hailing from the Champagne regions of France, its biggest names are among the biggest names in wine: Moet, Dom Perignon, Veuve Clicquot, Cristal.
But there’s another side to Champagne: a universe of small-scale producers preserving ancient family farming traditions and bottling wines you’ve never heard of.
These are the Grower Champagnes.
