The La Barbette 2022 cuvée from Sacy Soeur et Frère is a single-village champagne, made entirely from grapes grown in Verzy. Every one of them comes from this Grand Cru on the Montagne de Reims.
This is a cuvée that speaks of red fruits and white fruits, fresh and crunchy. Its texture is vinous (it has body and bite), underpinned by a fine tension.
It's a bottle you can open at aperitif time, with cheese gougères made with Comté for instance, and then bring back to the table alongside a roast Bresse chicken. Only 800 bottles were made.
Le Terroir
The La Barbette 2022 cuvée is a Blanc de Noirs, meaning it is made exclusively from Pinot Noir.
The Pinot Noir comes from the terroir of Verzy, a village classified as Grand Cru on the Grande Montagne de Reims, where Domaine Sacy Soeur et Frère farms its vines.
Grand Cru sits at the top of the cru ladder (the classification that rates every village in Champagne according to the value of its terroir): it is the highest recognition a village's terroir can receive. Because the cuvée comes from a single cru, it does not blend several villages: the wine carries the imprint of one place, with a clear and legible identity.
On this terroir, Pinot Noir gives the wine structure and depth.
La vinification
Jonathan Sacy, the winemaker at Domaine Sacy Soeur et Frère, chose to age this 2022 Pinot Noir in barrel: the oak adds toasty, woody notes that sit alongside the fruit. He allowed malolactic fermentation (the conversion of the wine's sharp acidity into a softer one) to run its full course, which rounds off the acidity and gives a velvety feel on the palate.
The wine was then bottled under cork to develop its bubbles. Only 800 bottles of La Barbette were produced. Classified as Brut Nature, this champagne has no dosage: no sweet liqueur is added, which leaves the wine with all its precision and tension. The bottle was disgorged in December 2025.
Le millésime 2022
On the Montagne de Reims, where Verzy lies, the 2022 harvest finished around mid-September. The grapes had reached full ripeness. The Pinot Noir was picked ripe and perfectly healthy, with no trace of rot. The crop was also generous, and growers across the appellation judged it very even from one sector to the next.
This full ripeness, combined with healthy fruit, gives this Grand Cru cuvée (the highest tier in the classification of villages) a ripe-fruit character and a natural roundness, noticeable from the very first sip.
