Agrapart & Fils

In 1894 at the beginning of France’s lively Belle Époque, Arthur Agrapart started the family domaine that would become Champagne Agrapart & Fils. The estate has weathered many storms, including World War I, an economic depression, and the German Occupation during World War II, which devastated stock by millions of cases throughout the region. In the 1950s, Arthur’s grandson Pierre set out to rebuild the family business by making wines of quality rather than following the commercial trends of the day. Today, Pierre’s sons Pascal and Fabrice have followed suit, still farming their own vineyards along the prestigious Côte de Blancs, as well as blending and bottling their own wines. The Agrapart family makes truly hand-made wines, seeking to bring out the individuality of each terroir.

The winery is based in the grand cru village of Avize, famous for its cuvees of 100% Chardonnay. Pascal and Fabrice farm 10 hectares from some 60 different vineyard plots in the Côte de Blancs, including Oger, Cramant, Oiry and Avize. They prefer not to label their viticultural methods; they farm using only homeopathic vine treatments, composts, manures, and regular plowing. The Agraparts were one of the first families to bring the draft horse back to the vineyards, and have since named a cuvee in honor of their four-hooved friend, Venus. In plowing the old-school way, they expose the clay and limestone soils to immune-boosting properties of the wind and sun. While they once were the object of ridicule, they now lead a return to authentic, ancestral practices. Their quality control extends to manual harvests, a selective triage of the grapes, and the use of native yeasts during fermentation. Malolactic fermentations are employed to round out the intensity of these mineral-driven Champagnes. The wines age on their lees for an extended period of time, and then are racked to both stainless steel and neutral oak barrels—the latter being a rarity in Champagne. All wines are bottled unfined and unfiltered. Up until the time when he passed away in 1996 at the age of 96, Pascal and Fabrice’s grandfather, Auguste Agrapart, took great pride in hand-riddling each bottle of Agrapart Champagne. When asked for the secret to his long life was, his reply was “one bottle of Champagne a day.”