NV Maurice Choppin Les Mi Cotes Brut Champagne 750 ml

Champagne is arguably the most dynamic and exciting wine region in Europe—and it’s because of people like Benjamin Choppin.

The young vigneron is the seventh generation of his family to farm grapes and make wine in Champagne’s Vallée de la Marne, and during a different time (or if he were in a different region) he might continue to do things the way they’d always been done.

But Benjamin is a proud member of a youth movement that’s been dynamizing wine production in France’s most glamorous region, and, as a result, his family’s wines are interesting and profound in ways they’ve never been before.

His Les Mi-Côtes is the calling card for the estate: a blend of top terroirs in the villages of Damery, Saint Martin d’Ablois, Vinay, and Binson et Orquigny, and treated to all the little subtle elevations that make Choppin’s single-vineyard wines coveted by MICHELIN-starred names across the continent.

Start with the vineyards, which are farmed organically to an HVE (high environmental value) certification—sustainable stewardship is a core value of the estate—and carefully harvested at perfect ripeness, later than many of their neighbors, which allows Choppin to use a lower dosage down the line at bottling.

Benjamin ferments his base wines (60% Chardonnay, 40% Meunier) with native yeasts to build complexity and highlight his stunning terroir, which lies on a mixture of chalk, clay-limestone, and loamy soils—and fermentation and pre-bottling élevage occur in barrels, which are more expensive than tanks but build complexity and texture into the finished wine. Finally, Les Mi-Côtes spends a full three years en tirage on the lees, refining its mousse and building beautiful elegance.