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Champagne Yves Ruffin Cuvee Racines Extra Brut Premier Cru NV  - First Bottle

Reviews

96 Tasting Panel -
Here is a blend of 73.5% Chardonnay and 26.5% Pinot Noir with 3 g/L disgorged in 2023. It has a gorgeous, fragrant nose with pretty autolytic notes and a fabulously expansive palate with a delicious creamy mousse that resolves with excellent mineral tension and hen of the wood mushrooms. Baked orchard fruits and salty mineral notes. Long and lean and complex.

Technical Details

  • Blend73.5% Chardonnay and 26.5% Pinot Noir
  • WinemakerAntonin Ruffin
  • CountryFrance
  • RegionChampagne
  • Sub-RegionVallée de la Marne
  • AppellationChampagne Premier Cru
  • Aging/Cooperage48 months on the lees with 3 g/L dosage
  • Harvest DateDisgorged 2023
  • Alcohol12.5%

Champagne Yves Ruffin Cuvee Racines Extra Brut Premier Cru NV

Champagne Blends  |  France
TP96

33% off retail!
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Founded in 1971 in Avenay-Val-d’Or, Champagne Yves Ruffin has long stood out from the crowd for its strong focus on organic viticulture – which, at the time, was exceedingly rare. Yves and his wife, Odette Pitois – both born into grower families – were just one of four winegrowers, out of thousands, at this time to concentrate on organic practices in order to preserve their environment. They’ve never made enough to compete with the Grande Marque houses – but year after year, these are some of the most sought after Champagnes out there!

This 96-point 100% reserve wine is as deliciously impressive as it is a tale of a family’s perseverance and commitment to their craft. We love a family grower who looks at winemaking as more than just a job or paycheck. Yves Ruffin set out to make Champagne differently, exceptionally so, in the ‘70s – and his family has been carrying on the tradition ever since. This expansive and creamy 96 pt. Racines Extra Brut Premier Cru NV is an epic showing from this small but mighty family producer who continues to turn heads.

After Yves’ retirement, the winery passed hands to Thierry, who continued forging a path for organic farming, oak barrel vinification, traditional pressing, and lengthy aging practices. Unfortunately, Thierry passed away prematurely, and his wife, Sylvie, and then son, Antonin, took the reins and continued the family legacy in Thierry’s honor.

This “Racines” cuvee (which translates to “roots”) further exemplifies the gift of winemaking in this dedicated family. A celebration of the estate’s reserve wines, it pulls 74% chardonnay from 2016 and 2017, plus 26% pinot noir from vintages spanning 2012 to 2017. The wine undergoes malolactic fermentation to round and texturize the wine, followed by vinifying on oak and acacia wood before disgorgement in February 2023 and an Extra Brut dosage of 3 g/L.

The result is astoundingly terrific… rich and autolytic, with tons of mineral complexity that carries ample citrus notes of pomelo, lime, and blood orange. There’s a nutty, toasty characteristic that the 96 pt. review aptly describes as hen of the woods mushroom, and as that is one of my all-time favorite fungi – I’m here for it! The creamy mousse lingers impressively, and baked apples and pears develop in the glass over time. Fantastic stuff that will compete with the cult-y big boys and girls of Champagne’s greats. Our price got it from triple digits to double – saving you over $50 in the process – which, in our minds, absolutely grants the permission to order at LEAST two. Only a few cases of this are available… and with the holidays coming up, this is the special bottle of bubbly you’ve been looking for!!!

About the Producer

Yves Ruffin and his wife, Odette Pitois, founded their maison in Avenay-Val-d’Or, both hailing from winegrowing families. From the beginning, they distinguished themselves by adopting organic viticulture—a rarity at the time, with only four winegrowers in the region embracing such an environmentally conscious approach. Their cellar, unique for being dug into a hillside entirely at ground level, was an ongoing family project. Yves and his son Thierry worked together to excavate the cellar in Champagne's famous chalk subsoil, ensuring that the bottles were stored in perfect conditions with constant humidity. To increase production, the family purchased an additional half-hectare in Tauxières-Mutry, expanding their vineyards across the Vallée de la Marne and Montagne de Reims to three hectares in total. Thierry Ruffin, after taking over the maison following Yves’s retirement, modernized the estate while maintaining its core values: organic farming, vinification in oak barrels, traditional pressing, and extended aging. He also introduced collaborations with artists, commissioning Nicole Bottet, Gottfried Salzmann, and Nieves Salzmann to design unique labels for his cuvées. After Thierry’s untimely passing, his wife Sylvie stepped in to continue the family legacy, upholding the maison’s traditions. Now, alongside Sylvie, their son Antonin has begun working at the estate, ensuring that the family’s vision and commitment to organic viticulture will endure for future generations.