Champagne Domaine Nowack Assemblage S.A. Autre Cru Extra Brut NV

The Nowack family has been around Champagne since the 1700s. When they moved from the Czech Republic, their family craft was not in wine, but rather construction. However, Patriarch Pierre-Fernand Nowack started growing grapes around 1850, and so the Nowack legacy began. Today, seventh-generation vintner, Flavien Nowack, runs winery operations, and his fervor has transformed viticultural practices in the Nowack family vineyard, with organic and biodynamic farming since 2011.

Though the Nowacks make many cuvees, their signature cuvee is this Sans Annee, and Flavien has affectionately called it “a reflection of my village.” The cepage is 60% Meunier and 40% Chardonnay, with a ‘21 vintage base and solera-style reserve wines from between 2012 and 2020. There’s only one gram per liter of dosage here, letting the terroir speak all its own. It ages for two years in the bottle, and there are fewer than 500 cases produced, making this an even more a rare treat! Flavien focuses on single-vineyard bottlings of his wines to express the terroir of his seven hectares of vines. He’s big on experimentation, as evidenced by this exemplary Champagne! When vinifying, he uses indigenous yeasts for the first fermentation, but nothing or just grape must for the second. The resulting wines are more vinous in texture, with less effervescence due to the lower atmospheric pressure in the bottle. 

The nose expresses a lovely conglomeration of quince paste, acacia flowers, toasted almonds, coconut macaroon, and preserved lemon – followed up on the palate with dense tropical fruits, including pineapple, bananas, golden kiwis, passion fruit, and guava taking center stage. Sans Annee is a mouth-coating and mouth-watering wine, and the acid is practically searing, with some angular edges that tend to round out quickly. You get all of this for only $59 – highly lauded Champagne from a producer who’s been in the game for centuries now. Do not miss out, darling!