Etienne Calsac Champagne Les Revenants
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The Land
Nearly everything Étienne Calsac farms sits in and around Avize, in the middle of the Côte des Blancs. This wine comes from somewhere else. Les Fours is a 0.3-hectare parcel in Montgenost, at the southern end of the Côte de Sézanne, the quiet stretch of Champagne that runs southwest of the Côte des Blancs and rarely gets named on a label. The plot faces due south and sits on sandy topsoil over chalk. That combination is the whole point: sand warms fast and drains hard, pulling ripeness forward in a way pure chalk does not, which is the only reason a variety as late and as brutally acidic as Arbane can finish here at all. Calsac planted the parcel himself in 2010.
The Wine
Extra Brut from three of Champagne's nearly extinct varieties: 50% Pinot Blanc for body, 43% Petit Meslier for aromatics, 7% Arbane for acidity, all picked and pressed together on a single day. The full press is kept rather than only the coeur de cuvée, an old method Calsac revived for this bottling. The juice settles in stainless, then goes into one 600-liter barrel for spontaneous fermentation and seven months on lees before going into bottle unfiltered. It ages under cork rather than crown cap, which admits a little more oxygen, for 24 to 30 months, and every bottle is disgorged by hand. No dosage is added; roughly 4 grams per liter of naturally occurring sugar remain. The current release is built on the 2022 harvest, hot and dry but unusually generous in Champagne. The wine runs to quince, bruised yellow apple, hay, chamomile, and salted almond, with a chalky grip, a faintly oxidative edge, and a dry, savory finish.
The People
Étienne Calsac took over his grandparents' three hectares around Avize in 2010, at twenty-six, after the family had spent generations selling fruit to the grandes maisons. He started converting immediately: grass cover crops between the rows, plowing in place of herbicide, horses where the tractor cannot go. Every parcel he works has been certified organic since 2021. Each plot is vinified separately, a share of it in barrel, and he keeps perpetual reserves for individual cuvées rather than one house blend. Les Revenants is his clearest statement of intent. The name means the ones who came back, and planting Arbane and Petit Meslier in 2010 was a bet that Champagne's abandoned grapes still had something to say.
Food Pairing
Texture and near-zero dosage put this closer to white Burgundy than to a celebration bottle. Roast chicken with tarragon and crème fraîche, a plate of aged Comté with cured ham, seared scallops in brown butter, or a mushroom and gruyère tart. The oxidative edge and hard acidity stand up to nutty, browned, savory cooking that flattens most sparkling wine. Use a wine glass rather than a flute and treat it as dinner rather than an aperitif.
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Champagne is the northernmost major wine region in France, defined by its cool climate, chalky soils, and centuries-old tradition of sparkling wine production. Centered around the towns of Reims and Épernay, the region is divided into key subzones like the Montagne de Reims, Vallée de la Marne, and Côte des Blancs, each favoring different grapes—Pinot Noir, Meunier, and Chardonnay respectively. The region’s signature chalk and limestone soils provide excellent drainage and impart a distinctive mineral character to the wines. While méthode champenoise was refined here in the 17th century, Champagne’s global prestige grew through the 19th and 20th centuries, cementing its role as the benchmark for sparkling wine worldwide.
