NV Diebolt-Vallois Tradition Brut Champagne 750 ml

The list of restaurants featuring Jacques Diebolt’s electrifying Champagnes reads like a who’s who of the Michelin Guide. The American allocation is typically exhausted by the world-class chefs and sommeliers who have adopted Diebolt-Vallois as their own.  

It’s just another reason why we feel so fortunate to be the official wine provider of the Michelin Guide. Because of that connection, we scored the kind of allocation that other retailers would kill for—and a price that’s all but untouchable for this delicious bottle of bubbly. 

Jacques Diebolt’s Cuvée Tradition is a masterpiece. It’s got tiny bubbles of great persistence, tightly wound aromatics, and a beautifully chiseled palate showing floral fruit notes of ripe apple, white cherry, and apricot. It finishes with zesty acidity and a lingering hint of ginger.

If you ever encounter this incredible Champagne by the glass at a Michelin-level restaurant, you’ll pay $25-30 per glass. That same amount will almost get you a whole bottle on Wine Access.

“Top notch Meursault… with bubbles!”

It was our friend Pierre Paillardon who first introduced us to the chiseled Champagnes of Diebolt-Vallois. The redheaded sommelier had stunned Parisian jurors—first by winning the award for Best Young Sommelier in France, then by blowing away the field at the Best Sommelier of Paris competition. Paillardon’s penchant for blindly identifying great vintages of First Growth Bordeaux was stupefying, not least because the vintages in question had often been bottled well before Paillardon was born.  

That said, Pierre’s passion was Champagne.

So when he poured us our first glasses of Jacques Diebolt’s Champagne at Chef Gérard Vié’s two-star Les Trois Marches in Versailles, we took careful note. Then he said something we’d never forget. “Monsieur Diebolt’s Champagnes are one of a kind, like top-notch Meursault… with bubbles.”

In the years that followed, even as Jacques Diebolt rarely left his cellar in Cramant, Diebolt-Vallois took Paris by storm, earning by-the-glass placements at a half-dozen three-star Michelin addresses, including Le Pré Catalan, Guy Savoy, Le Crillon, and the Four Seasons George V. As the estate was small, very few bottles from what Paillardon and other top somms believed to be Cramant’s greatest Champagne house made it to the States.

Finally, in the early 2000s, Jacques cautiously entered the American market. A few pallets found their way to NYC, and nearly every bottle was quickly snatched up by the likes of Le Bernardin, Daniel, and Bar Boulud. The US allocation increased, and by 2020, the NY importer was offered 1,000 cases. 

We don’t have anywhere close to that for Wine Access members, but we do have an allocation that every other retailer would kill for—not to mention an incredible price. Don’t miss your shot at one of our favorite Champagnes.