Aurelien Lurquin

Aurélien was an apprentice in Burgundy with Luc Pavelot in Pernand-Vergelesses between 2002 and 2005. He then moved to Maule, Chile, for a short period, where he worked with horses in the vineyard every day. After finally returning to his old nest in Champagne, Aurélien started the transition to an organic way of wine growing in 2007. He settled in the village of Chamery, in the Montagne de Reims. In the same year, he bought his beautiful classic Coquart wine press (which can press 2000 kg).

Where he previously sold his grapes to the organically certified Champagne house Leclerc-Briant, just like his buddy Emilien Feneuil, he made his first natural Champagnes from 2013. Emilien followed in 2015, with his own 'maiden vintage'.

After pressing in the Coquart, the juice flows by gravity to the old traditional cellar. The cuvées and the tailles are normally separate but can also be mixed (3/4 cuvée and 1/4 of the taille is common). Aurélien strives for unspoiled freshness in his wines.

The fermentations run quite slowly in his cellar. Aurélien is experimenting with adding must from the upcoming vintage to the base wine, bringing his maturation on lees for the base wines to even more than a full year. For his Côteaux Champenois, a still red wine, he now rests the wine in barrels for up to 3 years.

No concessions are made on the quality of the wine on this domaine and the yields are therefore very low. William Kelley's first reviews (for Robert Parker) were full of praise. On his first visit to Lurquin, he immediately awarded 95 PP to the Blanc de Blancs.