André Clouet Silver Brut Nature | Champagne

The Clouets have been in Bouzy since 1492, but before wine they lived by printing: they were official printers to the court of Louis XV at Versailles.

That trade has not entirely gone. The house's labels are designed as a tribute to the Ancien Régime, so the family's past is still there, quite literally, on the paper of the bottle.

The maison begins in 1741, in Bouzy, in the heart of the Montagne de Reims. Jean-François Clouet was born and raised in the village and lives in the eighteenth-century house his forebears built.

The vineyard is under ten hectares, all of it grand cru, on the mid-slopes of Bouzy and Ambonnay: pinot noir country.

They work with old presses, riddling by hand and traditional disgorgement. Their 1911 cuvée is entirely pinot noir from the ten best lieux-dits they hold in Bouzy.