2015 Agrapart et Fils Extra Brut Grand Cru Blanc de Blancs Mineral

Champagne Agrapart et Fils is in the village of Avize, in Champagne’s Cote de Blancs. Founded in the 19th century by Arthur Agrapart, the estate has always bottled its own Champagne, which was an uncommon practice among small growers until recently. The 25-acre estate is today run by the brothers Pascal and Fabrice Agrapart, and it produces about 5,400 cases annually. Agrapart owns Grand Cru parcels in Avize, Cramant, Oiry and Oger. The estate makes vintage and non-vintage Champagnes, as well as a Brut Rose. Wine Advocate's Antonio Galloni has written that "Meticulous attention to farming and winemaking places Agrapart at or near the top of Champagne's finest artisan growers."

Champagne is a small, beautiful wine growing region northeast of Paris whose famous name is misused a million times a day. As wine enthusiasts and all French people are well aware, only sparkling wines produced in Champagne from grapes grown in Champagne can be called Champagne. Sparkling wines produced anywhere else, including in other parts of France, must be called something besides Champagne. Champagne producers are justifiably protective of their wines and the prestige associated with true Champagne. Though the region was growing grapes and making wines in ancient times, it began specializing in sparkling wine in the 17th century, when a Benedictine monk named Dom Pierre Pérignon formulated a set guidelines to improve the quality of the local sparkling wines. Despite legends to the contrary, Dom Pérignon did not “invent” sparkling wine, but his rules about aggressive pruning, small yields and multiple pressings of the grapes were widely adopted, and by the 18th and 19th centuries Champagne had become the wine of choice in fashionable courts and palaces throughout Europe. Today there are 75,000 acres of vineyards in Champagne growing Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Pinot Meunier. Champagne’s official appellation system classifies villages as Grand Cru or Premier Cru, though there are also many excellent Champagnes that simply carry the regional appellation. Along with well-known international Champagne houses there are numerous so-called “producer Champagnes,” meaning wines made by families who, usually for several or more generations, have worked their own vineyards and produced Champagne only from their own grapes.