Champagne Baldi Pain

VERZENAY · MONTAGNE DE REIMS · GRAND CRU · GROWER CHAMPAGNE

Paul Baldi trained as a sommelier in France, worked in restaurants across Switzerland and California, and eventually landed as wine director at Bar Crenn — Dominique Crenn's Michelin-starred restaurant in San Francisco. It was there that his Champagne project began to take shape, in collaboration with his childhood friend and winemaker Benjamin Pain back in Champagne.

Their vineyards are in Verzenay, one of the Montagne de Reims' Grand Cru villages, historically celebrated for Pinot Noir grown on clay and limestone soils. The vines were established in 1965 and are now farmed organically. Production is tiny — around 50 cases exported to the US in the first vintages — which makes every bottle count.

This is grower Champagne in the truest sense: two people who grew up in the region, farming their own land, making wine that tastes like a specific place rather than a house style. The Extra-Brut is a blend of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, precise and mineral, with the kind of transparency you only get from single-estate fruit and minimal dosage.

For a Champagne this rare and this well-sourced, it remains one of the most exciting values in our cellar.

Sommelier-made, Grand Cru grown, San Francisco approved.