It’s hard to overstate how far the wines of this producer have come over the years. No one could accuse him of making life easy for himself. His domaine now works with 12 hectares spread across a mind-boggling 85 parcels in 12 villages. This kind of roster would be awkward for a conventional domaine to manage; it is a little short of a heroic commitment for an estate working in biodynamics and organics. These terroir-centric wines are at a level that compares with the best grower wines in Champagne. Let’s not forget we are talking about a vigneron barely in his 40s. To put it mildly, these intensely focused wines, composed with an innovative approach to vinification, have expanded the limits of what many thought possible in the Coteaux Sud d’Épernay.

This terroir sits at the crossroads of the Côte des Blancs and Vallée de la Marne and is home to over 60% of Laherte’s vines. Most of these vines lie in the domaine’s picturesque home of Chavot, a village that gives clear insight into how much we tend to simplify the soils of Champagne. While most writing on the region talks only of the famous chalk, the CIVC— the regional association that represents the producers and growers—notes that there are at least 30 soil types in Champagne. Chavot alone features 15 of those! Such Burgundian diversity has given rise to a fascinating series of soil-specific wines, many comprising a single barrel or two.

This fact, not to mention the range of varieties involved, makes it tricky to talk of a Laherte style. But Tyson Stelzer notes that, tasting Laherte’s young vin clairs, “the distinctive saltiness, glassy chalk minerality and north-facing freshness of Chavot are unique compared with his parcels from other villages”. Aurélien concludes that Chavot’s clay terroirs give fruiter Chardonnay than the Côte des Blancs, while the limestone-dominant sites deliver finer Meunier than the Marne Valley. We could also point to the deliciously refreshing quinine and flinty lick particular to Laherte’s Coteaux-based wines.

One of the many exciting developments at this address is the Laherte family’s work with one of Champagne’s heirloom grapes, Petit Meslier. Although this low-yielding variety has been largely forgotten in Champagne, Aurélien is betting that Meslier will play a growing part in Champagne’s future, not least for its ability to retain acidity, even in warmer vintages. Aurélien’s father, Thierry Laherte, established the domaine’s first vines in 2003 as part of the Les 7 field planting. Between 2018 and 2023, Aurélien developed a mid-slope vineyard on Chavot’s clay/limestone soils, using mass-selection cuttings from the domaine’s oldest Meslier vines. In the future, Laherte says he expects to use most of his Meslier to boost the freshness and acidity of his blended wines, using the variety like a condiment to improve the balance. For now, he is bottling a rare single-vineyard and single-variety cuvée that sings of Meslier’s vivid intensity and Alpine-meadow freshness.

 “We are always trying new things, never stopping!” 

Laherte’s work in the vines is tailored to each parcel's needs and location. Most of the estate is biodynamically farmed and manually ploughed, except for those vineyards that are too far away to do so effectively (mainly those in the Côte des Blancs and the Vallée de la Marne). These latter sites are still managed organically, with cover crops used to naturally aerate the soil and develop microbiological life. Regardless of the site, plant-based infusions are used to fight oidium and biodynamic preparations (500, 501) are sprayed for fertility. No shortcuts to quality are taken here.

The impeccable standards continue in the cellar, where Aurélien uses the traditional wooden Coquard Champagne press. He has two of these behemoths—very unusual for an estate this small—which allows him to press quickly and to keep small parcels separate. The wines are moved only by gravity. Fermentation occurs with natural yeast, and over 80% of the wine ferments and matures in large foudres and old barriques, as all Champagne used to before the 1950s. His approach to malolactic conversion is predicably artisanal, with each wine tasted several times before deciding whether or not to block it. The dosage trials follow a similar old-school path. Aurélien invites his friends in the trade, including the Bérêche brothers, and the final dosage is decided by the bottle that empties fastest!

They say the cream always rises to the top, and over 20 years working the soil, Laherte has methodically identified several small parcels, or lieux-dits, that consistently deliver the most vivid expression of place. Aurélien asserts that the domaine's blended wines will always remain the pillar of the estate. In contrast, the Cistercian method of one parcel equals one wine allows him to showcase his most exciting terroirs and the play of the season. Each wine has a sense of purpose, and that most of these vineyards fall within his home village of Chavot is clearly the source of great pride.

For example, Les Vignes d’Autrefois is Laherte’s tribute to his region’s 1940-era Meunier vines planted around Chavot. Expressing the sweetness of the variety with the minerality of the chalk soils, this is one of Champagne’s great Meunier bottlings, reflecting the best qualities of both variety and place. The Blanc des Blancs Les Grandes Crayères showcases Laherte’s two most chalky mineral soils in Coteaux Sud d’Épernay. Crayères means chalk, and Aurélien’s 40-plus-year-old mass-selection vines are situated on a west-facing hillside composed of Campanian chalk under just 20 centimetres of topsoil. Vibrating with chalky sensations, it is perhaps Aurélien's most taut and intensely mineral wine.

Then there is one of Champagne’s most distinctive and enchanting rosé wines. Laherte’s no-punches-pulled Les Beaudiers is crafted from vines dating back to the 1950s. In Chavot, this powerful limestone terroir can ripen Meunier to full maturity, giving a deeply textured and mouth-filling rosé marked by smoke and liquorice. Finally, no discussion of this grower's wines is complete without mention of one of the most distinctive wines being made in Champagne today: Les 7. A true field blend bottled from a perpetual reserve of all seven of Champagne’s varieties, the current release melds 15 vintages into one remarkably complex, fleshy, savoury wine that is as enticing as it is fascinating.