93 points Vinous Media

The 2021 Extra Brut Blanc de Blancs Les Grandes Crayères 1er Cru is stellar. Bright, punchy and chiseled, the Les Grandes Crayères screams with character. Lemon oil, chalk, mint, dried herbs, white pepper and marzipan sizzle in the glass. What a gorgeous and expressive Champagne this is. The Grandes Crayères is fermented and aged in barrel, but what comes through most is the intensely chalky, mineral character of vines in Chavot that were planted from 1953 to 1978. This is classic Laherte all the way. Dosage is 2.5 grams per liter. Disgorged: December 2024; multiple disgorgements throughout the year.

The Laherte family, now in its seventh generation under Aurélien Laherte, has built a reputation for producing some of Champagne’s most terroir-driven wines. Les Grandes Crayères comes from a single lieu-dit in Chavot, south of Épernay, planted exclusively to Chardonnay in 1983. The site sits on deep, chalky subsoils with a thin layer of clay and sand on top, giving the wine both tension and depth—an ideal expression of the Côteaux Sud d’Épernay’s limestone-rich terroir.