NV D'Armanville Brut Champagne 750 ml

The Côte des Bar has long been a Champagne value stronghold—but the word is getting out. 

Vouette et Sorbée’s Saignée de Sorbée is $150. Marie Courtin’s Indulgence is $115. And Cedric Bouchard’s Brut Rosé, the Creux d'Enfer, is pushing a GRAND.

That’s why we were so thrilled to discover Champagne D’Armanville’s Brut. It’s an outstanding Champagne find that has all the exuberance that has made the Côte des Bar so trendy. 

Critic Eric Asimov, in the New York Times, captured the essence of the Côte des Bar’s slightly rugged appeal, especially for wine lovers who favor a concrete sense of place in their Champagnes. “Rather than the hushed pop of the cork and the silken rush of bubbles,” he wrote, “these Champagnes suggest soil on the boots and dirt under the fingernails.” 

As Champagne’s southernmost zone, the Côte des Bar sits closer to Chablis than to Reims. Pinot Noir is king here, where vineyards rooted in soils checkered with Kimmeridgian bands lend themselves to rich, fruity Champagnes with a minerality that distinguishes them from those made in the chalkier subsoils of the Marne in the north. The area shares the same limestone and clay soils as Chablis, too, lending this wine an extraordinary mineral quality while simultaneously delivering the supple fruit we want in a Pinot-driven sparkler.

In the D’Armanville, you feel that fruity quality from the first gold-tinted pour to the ripe, generous palate that keeps giving long after the sip. It’s this balance between refined and rugged that marks this fantastic Brut, making it a stellar expression of the region.