A. Lété Champagne L’Avant Garde Blanc de Noirs 75 cl.

The village of Dámery lies in the heart of the Marne Valley, whose vineyards are renowned for their high proportion of Pinot Meunier. Cuvée l’Avant Garde is a blanc de noirs made from equal parts of Pinot Meunier and Pinot Noir.

A. Lété, unlike the Champagne industry’s massive marketing circus, is a small-scale producer with 9 hectares of vineyards. Through hard (hand) labor, skill, and a lack of advertising budget, they create quality at a reasonable price. At A. Lété, everything from harvest to remuage is done manually.

This blanc de noirs incorporates 30% reserve wine from older vintages, resulting in a pleasant combination of the depth of aged wines and youthful freshness. This champagne is aged for 30 months before disgorgement, offering fine, creamy bubbles and an extra layer of complexity from the prolonged yeast contact.

A. Lété Champagne Brut l’Avant Garde is an elegant, dry champagne that is surprisingly easy to drink. This is partly due to the wine’s soft mousse and natural fullness. It is not a masculine interpretation of BdN but rather a wine with subtle, airy red fruit and yeast-derived aromas of rye bread dough and toasted bread. It is pleasantly dry without being austere.

Many enjoy champagne with the King on New Year’s Eve—and there’s nothing wrong with that—but in terms of food, champagne is incredibly versatile. It’s arguably the most complete food companion one can imagine if choosing a single wine for an entire meal. Beyond classic French dishes, it pairs excellently with tapas-inspired courses and several regional cuisines from the Far East, provided the chili intensity isn’t overwhelming.

Serve chilled at around 7-11°C, depending on preference, but always remember not to use machine-washed champagne glasses, as dishwasher rinse agents effectively neutralize the wine’s bubbles.