2020 Champagne Pascal Agrapart "Experience" Grand Cru Blanc de Blancs, Brut Nature , Champagne, France

ABOUT THIS WINE

The 2020 Champagne Pascal Agrapart "Experience" is a highly sought-after micro-cuvee Champagne known as "Expérience," the word for "experiment" in French. It is the rarest of the Agrapart wines. Experience is made through a risky and complicated process that includes only grapes - no yeast, sulfur or sugar are added at any point in vinification, ageing or at disgorgement. These grapes are sourced from organically farmed, select parcels in top Grand Cru villages of the Côte de Blancs.

To accomplish this "experiment," Agrapart takes a base wine and adds unfermented pressed grape juice from the following vintage as the prise de mousse to launch the secondary fermentation. There is no dosage, allowing the raw expression of the chalky terroir to shine. Today, many producers in the region are experimenting with this approach, now dubbed The Agrapart Method. This tiny cuvée is not made every year, but only made when two successive vintages create the ideal conditions for making this cuvee.

ABOUT THIS PRODUCER

Founded in 1894 in the Grand Cru village of Avize, Agrapart is one of Champagne’s most respected grower-producers. Unlike many small estates, the Agrapart family has bottled under its own label since the domaine’s inception. Pascal Agrapart managed the estate for many years before passing it over to his son Ambroise. Ambroise is the fifth generation of the family.

The domaine farms approximately 10 hectares of predominantly Grand Cru Chardonnay vineyards in Avize, Oger, Cramant, and Oiry, with a small holding of Pinot Noir in Avenay-Val-d'Or. Production remains intentionally small, never exceeding 5,400 cases annually. Many vines are over 70 years old, and the estate has practiced organic farming for years, focusing on vineyard health rather than certification or marketing.

Agrapart is renowned for producing precise, terroir-driven Champagnes that showcase the chalk-rich soils of the Côte des Blancs. The range includes the non-vintage cuvées Les 7 Crus, Terroirs, and Complantée, as well as the acclaimed single-vineyard vintage wines Minéral, Vénus, and L’Avizoise. The estate also produces the rare Expérience, made using only grapes with no added yeast, sugar, or sulfur—a pioneering technique now known as the “Agrapart Method.”

Today, Agrapart is widely regarded as one of Champagne’s benchmark grower estates, admired for its commitment to quality, authenticity, and expressive vineyard-driven wines.