NV Maurice Grumier Réserve Perpétuelle Extra-Brut Champagne 750 ml

We don’t know HOW Champagne locals have kept Maurice Grumier a secret for this long, but we certainly know WHY: because Grumier crafts some of the region’s most expressive, delicious wines—and the Réserve Perpétuelle is proof.

Despite nearly 300 years of prominence in the Marne Valley, selling grapes to houses like Perrier-Jouët and Taittinger as well as crafting their own small-lot bottlings, Grumier has never reached the US. We were tipped off to the winery by a friend—a Master of Wine who wrote the book on vintage Champagne—and after we tasted the Réserve Perpétuelle, we understood what had him so excited. 

This is pure Champagne luxury, striking a perfect balance between breadth and focus. The nose shows brilliant complexity, with notes of red and green apples, yellow flowers, chalk, poached pear, brioche, coriander, and toasted nuts. Each sip reveals layers of fresh and baked fruit, exotic spices, toast, and hazelnuts, all underpinned by a refreshing minerality. It’s a must-have for fans of fuller, richer styles of Champagne. 

Grumier makes the Réserve Perpétuelle using a solera, a rare, expensive form of winemaking famously used by Jacques Selosse for his four-digit-priced bottles. Grumier holds many vintages in barrel for years, then combines them in various portions to make up a bottling. 

The winery started their solera in 2005, and this bottle comprises 60% base wine from 2019 blended with 40% reserve wines. Bottled in 2020 yet disgorged recently, it’s an expressive, decade-spanning tapestry of equal parts Pinot Meunier, Pinot Noir, and Chardonnay.

This is an extraordinary wine from one of Champagne’s best-kept secrets—a bottle that no lover of first-class bubbly should miss.