Champagne Buying Guide
Catching Up with Our Best Friends in Champagne
Gary Westby, K&L Champagne Buyer
Today's buying guide gets us (re)acquainted with the people and places that make our Champagne portfolio the best in the business. Fresh off a visit to the region, I've come back with a renewed appreciation for these treasured estates, a few of which I've worked with for going on two decades. Recent containers have just dropped a treasure trove of unbeatable direct-import buys on our shelves, so I invite you to explore below and take a deep dive into these beloved wines and producers.
Fallet-Dart's Ultra-Classic Grower Champagnes
Petiau: A New DI Addition Makes a Big Splash
My 2024 Champagne of the Year
The Return of All-Time Favorite Launois
Unmatched QPR Gems from Baron-Fuenté
Fallet-Dart's Exceptional, Aged Grower Champagnes
All of the big houses say that this part of the Marne is just for Meunier and only good for the shortest-aged blends. Fallet-Dart proves them wrong. They grow great quality Chardonnay and Pinot Noir here as well as fantastic Meunier and offer the longest-aged current release Champagne that we stock at 19 years old. Everything that they make is grown on their own estate. I should not have been surprised by how well the wines showed given how long we have worked together, but wow, these are world class, and the value from top to bottom is simply amazing. Read more.
NV Fallet-Dart "Cuvée de Réserve" Brut Champagne $32.99 View
NV Fallet-Dart "Grande Sélection" Brut Champagne $34.99 View
NV Fallet-Dart Brut Rosé Champagne $34.99 View
2016 Fallet-Dart Brut Champagne $49.99 View
NV Fallet-Dart "Clos du Mont" Brut Champagne (2006) $69.99 View
The White Pearl of Champagne: Petiau
In the part of Champagne known most for Pinot Noir, there is a magical place called La Perle Blanche de la Montagne de Reims, the east-facing slope of this small but prominent hill. The first village of this sub-region is the Premier Cru of Trépail, where the Petiau family tends to a small but exceptional vineyard. Like many of the best producers in Champagne, they have continued to nurture their own massal selection of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, choosing not to use the earlier ripening, more generously bearing modern clones. This great plant material, in conjunction with a lot of patience for long aging in the cellar, makes these wines really stand out. Because we buy the bottles directly from the family, the value is also outstanding. Read more.
NV Petiau Brut Grande Réserve Champagne $34.99 View
NV Petiau Brut Grande Réserve Champagne Magnum 1.5L $69.99 View
NV Petiau Brut Rosé Champagne $34.99 View
NV Petiau "Cuvée Prestige" Brut Champagne $49.99 View
NV Petiau Brut Blanc de Blancs Grand Cru Champagne $39.99 View
NV Petiau Brut "Carte d'Or" Champagne $39.99 View
Frontrunner for Champange of the Year
Always a highly anticipated release from one of K&L's favorite grand marques, Billecart-Salmon's 2012 Cuvée Louis lives up to the illustrious track record of this benchmark luxury collectible. After ten years on the lees, it's one of the last 2012s to be released to market, and while it's wonderfully compelling now, it's a quintessential cellar candidate that will shine for a very long time. I have been lucky enough to have tasted it three times since its release this April, and to drink it once at home as well. This is a Champagne that epitomizes the elegance of this great house, and of Grand Cru Chardonnay from the region. It’s a fitting follow up to the great 2008 and the ripe and rich 2009, so much so that I'm preparing to crown it my favorite Champagne release of 2024. Read more.
2012 Billecart-Salmon "Cuvée Louis" Brut Blanc de Blancs Champagne 97 $199.99 View
2012 Billecart-Salmon "Cuvée Louis" Brut Blanc de Blancs Champagne (1.5L) 97 $449.99 View
Fan-Favorite Champagne Launois Back In Stock
Our shipment of Launois recently arrived, just before I shipped out to Mesnil to visit the property. I just tasted all of these wines with Séverine Launois and as usual, their range of estate-grown, Grand Cru Chardonnay–centered wines were amazing. There is a reason that these are the best-selling Champagnes at K&L: they refuse to use anything other than their own vineyards, and those vineyards are exclusively planted to massal selections from their own mother vines—they do not have any cloned plants at all here. The heart of the vineyard, the place where they have the most land, is none other than the legendary Mesnil Grand Cru—the most expensive and most sought-after in all of the Champagne region. Read more.
NV Launois "Cuvée Réservée" Grand Cru Brut Blanc de Blancs Champagne $34.99 View
NV Launois "Veuve Clemence" Brut Blanc de Blancs Champagne $44.99 View
NV Launois "Quartz" Brut Blanc de Blancs Champagne $39.99 View
2017 Launois "Cuvée Maxime" Brut Blanc de Blancs Champagne $49.99 View
NV Launois "Dorine" Brut Blanc de Blancs Champagne $39.99 View
NV Launois "Oeil de Perdrix" Brut Champagne $49.99 View
NV Launois Brut Rosé "Valentine" Champagne $39.99 View
NV Launois "Severine" Brut Blanc de Blancs Champagne $59.99 View
A New Era Dawns at Baron-Fuenté
No visit to Champagne would be complete without a drive out to Charly-sur-Marne in the westernmost part of the region to visit Sophie and Ignace Baron at Champagne Baron Fuenté. This year, they have gone through a big label change, with the entire Esprit range now renamed Quinconce. Don’t worry—the great quality and the prices have not changed, just the name. Ignace Baron felt that the name Esprit did not tell the story of the wine well enough, and Quinconce is the word for how the bottles lie, like sardines, in giant stacks for ageing. Since these wines are some of the longest aged non-vintage bottles that we sell at any price, Quinconce just might be a better name. Say “Keenconse” for a toasty-style Champagne with a perfect bead from patient aging! Read more.
NV Baron-Fuenté "Grande Réserve" Brut Champagne (Elsewhere $37) $25.99 View
NV Baron-Fuenté "Grande Réserve" Brut Champagne (375ml) 90 $14.99 View
NV Baron-Fuenté "Grande Réserve" Brut Champagne (1.5L) 90 $54.99 View
NV Baron-Fuenté "Quinconce" Brut Champagne (formerly Esprit) $34.99 View
NV Baron-Fuenté "Quinconce" Brut Nature Champagne (formerly Esprit) $34.99 View
NV Baron-Fuenté "Quinconce" Brut Rosé Champagne (formerly Esprit) $39.99 View
NV Baron-Fuenté "Quinconce" Blanc de Blancs Brut Champagne (formerly Esprit) $39.99 View
NV Baron-Fuenté "Esprit" Brut Champagne 92 $34.99 View
NV Baron-Fuenté "Esprit" Brut Nature Champagne 92 $34.99 View
NV Baron-Fuenté "Esprit" Blanc de Blancs Brut Champagne 92 $34.99 View
NV Baron-Fuenté "Esprit" Brut Rosé Champagne 90 $39.99 View