Champagne Paul Bara Extra Brut Grand Cru NV This Extra Brut rarely makes it across the pond – but of the four retailers in the USA – we’ve got the absolute BEST price!

That’s a pretty apt description, and I am just bouncing off the green velvet couch in my office right now… simply that excited to be offering this wine. Paul Bara is one of the great Bouzy houses – longtime champions of pinot noir that has consistently produced some of the most pleasing and valued Champagnes to be had anywhere… for decades running. 

The Paul Bara brand started as negociants, selling wine under the name beginning in the 1950s. Things changed quickly and for the better, when Paul obtained the winery property in 1960. It was essentially a farm, with stables, a cow shed, pens and a barn, but also had a century old cellar, dug over 30 feet deep in the earth – with the perfect humidity and temperature consistency to age fine wines. Within five years, the barn had been transformed into a press room and proper winery, the cellar converted to bottle and barrel storage, and the Bara family never looked back. Things really turned a corner in the mid 1970s, when the house made a decision that we all can be forever grateful for – namely, becoming one of the very first Champagne houses to export its Champagnes to the United States!

This stunning Extra Brut Champagne is composed of some 80% pinot noir, followed by 20% chardonnay. The grapes all hail from the Bara’s holdings in Bouzy, where 11 hectares, consisting entirely of Grand Cru fruit, is spread across 33 different parcels. The vast majority of the plantings are dedicated to pinot noir, with just about 1.5 hectares dedicated to chardonnay (and none to pinot meunier or other allotted varieties).

Following careful hand harvesting of the grapes, primary fermentation takes place in stainless steel vats.  Malolactic fermentation is always blocked in order to preserve the freshness and all of those classically styled aromas prized of the pinot noir grape – resulting in a very perfumed Extra Brut that is decidedly generous in proportions. Initial aromas of golden apples and fresh-snapped celery transition to a medley of stone fruits – pluots, white cherries, apricots, yellow plums, and white peaches, with a zesty hint of lemon and lime. In the mouth, the expansive and lively wine bursts with fresh pineapple, lemon meringue, and toasty, buttered brioche. An undercurrent of flinty, river rock minerality carries into a clean and crisp finish that will delight any manner of bubbly lovers. 

Simply a solid, solid effort that I intend to drink on the regular. For sheer quality to price ratio – these are hard to beat when it comes to world-class Champagne!