La Pirouette '22

Hélène Charbaut is a small grower-producer making some of the most quietly compelling Champagne in the region — a domaine built on old vines, precise farming, and a winemaking philosophy that prioritises expression over intervention. La Pirouette is her single-variety Pinot Noir: a wine whose name — a pirouette, a light and perfectly balanced turn — captures the style exactly. This is not a wine of weight and power. It is a wine of precision, poise, and an almost balletic sense of balance.

Pinot Noir in Champagne is typically associated with structure, depth, and the backbone that anchors a great blend — but in the hands of a grower like Hélène, working with old-vine fruit and minimal intervention, it can produce something far more nuanced and expressive than its blending reputation suggests. La Pirouette is vinified to show the variety's natural elegance rather than its power: expect red fruit — cherry, raspberry, a hint of strawberry — alongside fine brioche, a subtle earthy complexity, and the bright, precise acidity that defines great Champagne. The mousse is fine and persistent, the palate silky and long, the finish clean and mineral.