The Nowack family has been around Champagne since the 1700s. They moved from the Czech Republic, but their family craft was not in wine but in, shall we say, the construction arts, or the firing of bricks and tiles and pipe laying. However, Patriarch Pierre-Fernand Nowack had started growing grapes around 1850, and so the Nowack legacy begins. Today, seventh-generation vintner, Flavien Nowack, runs winery operations. His fervor has transformed viticultural practices in the Nowack family vineyard, and since 2011, the label has been farming organically and biodynamically. 

Flavien focuses on single-vineyard bottlings of his wines to express the terroir  of his seven hectares of vines. 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. Flavien is big on experimentation as evidenced by this Champagne. 

Though the Nowacks make many cuvees, their signature cuvee is this Sans Annee. 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 2012-2020. There’s only one gram per liter of dosage here, letting the terroir speak all its own. The chardonnay is vinified separately. It ages for two years in the bottle and there are less than 500 cases produced. On the palate you’ll find dense tropical fruits, including pineapple, bananas, golden kiwis and passion fruit and guava take center stage on both the nose and the palate. Sans Annee is a mouth-coating and mouth-watering wine that could, if so inclined, take the place of coffee for a morning wake-up rush. The acid is practically searing, with some angular edges that tend to round out quickly. 

These are some of the best wines I’ve ever tasted, and for the price, it’s almost unreal. You get all of this for only $54 – highly lauded Champagne from a producer who’s been in the game for centuries now. I know what I’m buying and gifting for Christmas. Do you?