The launch of the Éclose 2012 prestige cuvée is a first for Champagne. The cuvée has spent three years in a one-of-a-kind egg-shaped oak cask which Champagne Drappier says is the first in the region. Surely, no coincidence the launch is timed around Easter. And the cuvée name has been aptly chosen: in English éclose means hatched and, in French, emerging or opening.
Top wine journalists from France and Italy have been invited. We are at Drappier’s historic winery in the commune of Urville in the Aube in the Côte des Bar: the southern-most and highest area of the Champagne AOC, nearly 150 kilometres distant from Reims.
Michel Drappier with the new prestige cuvée Drappier Éclose 2012
“I’ve waited 16 years for this,” says Michel Drappier, the head of the Drappier family, as he proudly shows the fine cooperage of the ovum oak barrel made by Taransaud that first arrived in 2010. Kept in shape with metal hoops, this is where the 2012 base wine stayed for three years.
Hugo, his son and the maison’s cellar master, adds, “the egg is used for a three-year period of malolactic fermentation after alcoholic fermentation and the wine is bottled for secondary fermentation under cork, then sealed with an agrafe fastener.” We also spy a second, newer ovum, smoother in design with no external hoops but ties ingeniously secured inside. This is a thing of beauty.
The first ovum-shaped cask used for Éclose 2012
What makes the ovum-shaped cask special is the way the wine circulates in the vessel. The elliptical shape is inspired by the Fibonacci sequence, the celebrated mathematical formula that often appears in the natural world. Michel explains: "the special shape allows for the wine’s natural and harmonious circulation in a spiral, enhancing complexity and depth over the three-year maturation period.”
Tasting the base wines with cellar master Hugo Drappier
After viewing the ovums, we taste the base 100% Pinot Noir wines. In the older hooped cask is the wine from the 2022 harvest and in the newer smooth egg is base wine from 2023. As you would expect, the young wines are quite linear and acidic though with subtle differences. Clearly, they will improve dramatically with ageing.
The Éclose 2012 was bottled in 2015 and disgorged in 2025 (4g/litre dosage), having spent ten years on the lees before its éclosion. Depending on the vintage, the plan is to make the Éclose cuvée wine once every three years. Each ovum holds 2,500 litres producing a mere 3,000 bottles. As well as the 2012, the ovums have now been put to use with 2015, 2018 and 2022 wines.
Grande Sendrée ash covered plots
The grapes for Éclose come from the prized Grande Sendrée vineyards, an archipelago of plots farmed organically, located on Kimmeridgian chalk soils (of the sort also found in Chablis) and covered in ash since a fire that devastated Urville in 1836. The Éclose is a blend of Pinot Noir (60%) and Chardonnay (40%) from this rare terroir that gives the cuvée a mineral identity and geological memory.
Launch gastronomic pairing
We are with the Drappier family at their maison for an intimate fireside lunch. The wine is expertly paired by the two Michelin-star chef Valentin Loison from the restaurant Bulle Osier with exquisitely prepared courses including shallots and ‘liquorice wood’, and chicory with chicken liver and black truffle.
You can see it’s a special moment for the family to finally launch Éclose after 16 long years and a flute musical serenade has been arranged. The debut wine does not disappoint. Presented in a Louis XV-style bottle, it has great impact, structure and complexity. There is some wild berry and notes of vanilla and a delightful balance of acidity with hints of white peach and liquorice. Perfect to drink now, it’s intriguing to consider how much it will further improve in the years to come. Michel shows us a specially locally made crystal glass decanter as he loves to decant the wine too.
Other iconic champagnes
Hugo Drappier, cellar master Champagne Drappier
Champagne Drappier, founded in 1808, makes around 1.5 – 2 million bottles a year and has built up not only a strong reputation for its Pinot Noir-driven sparkling wine. Also notable is its early pursuit of sustainable approaches to viticulture - its aim is to be totally carbon neutral - and the production of low sulphur and low dosage wines.
The zero-dosage Drappier Brut Nature has a delightful balance of freshness with complexity and structure. It is even more moreish than other wines in this category I have tasted, a perfect aperitif. Éclose joins wines like Drappier’s prestige cuvée Grand Sendrée (Rosé and Blanc). There is also the Carte d’Or, another of its iconic wines with a beautiful coppery hue (in French it is described as d’or rose, translated into English as rose gold). Unusually Drappier makes its own liqueur d‘expédition matured in oak then in demijohns.The cellar visit is also the chance to see their unique impressive ‘liquotheque’ library with different ages going as far back as 1947.
Heritage and newer grape varieties
Drappier is rightly proud of planting heritage grape varieties including the extremely rare Petit Meslier alongside Arbane, Fromenteau and Blanc Vrai (included in the blend of its Clarevallis cuvée) and more recently Voltis and Chardonnay Rosé. The producer now has a record nine different varieties and in its Cuvée Quattuor (Blanc de Quatre Blancs) served as an aperitif before the lunch, classic Chardonnay is joined with 25% each of Arbane, Petit Meslier and Blanc Vrai. Fromenteau (aka Pinot Gris) produces wines with a light coppery hue and Drappier has launched a pure Fromenteau wine called ‘Trop m’en Faut’ AOC Champagne and a still AOC Champenois edition.
Patience for Éclose pays off
It’s no surprise that Champagne Drappier was a favourite of French president General Charles de Gaulle. The Drappier family has energy and commitment and we sense this ethos continuing through the generations. Eighth-generation eldest son Hugo has a warm, thoughtful spirit and deservedly is about to take over the reins of the family-run enterprise. Younger son Antoine’s focus is the vines’ health and looks after the horses used amongst them. Never pausing for breath, the family also has plans to build a hotel, spa and a winery expansion is shorty to be completed. They say all things come to those who wait – so after 16 years in its making, we say Bravo to Drappier Éclose and the impressive Drappier portfolio!
Éclose 2012 and the Drappier portfolio of wines are distributed in the UK by Berkmann Wine Cellars.
