Every spring, a curated group of Champagne’s most unapologetic grower-producers gathers in Épernay to pour their vin clair—the unbubbled, unsweetened, completely unfiltered base wine that almost no one ever tastes. This isn’t a festival. It’s a tasting for professionals only, and one of the most anticipated insider events in the grower Champagne world.

It’s called Terres et Vins de Champagne, and it’s the kind of event that doesn’t show up on tourism guides. You register. You’re vetted. And if you’re lucky enough to get in, you’re about to taste Champagne before it becomes Champagne.

The tasting takes place underground—literally—inside the vaulted cellar of the Musée du Vin de Champagne et d’Archéologie Régionale in Épernay. You step through a quiet courtyard, descend into a stone tunnel, and suddenly you’re surrounded by rows of barrels and low wooden tables. It feels more like a secret society for wine obsessives than a formal Champagne event.

The space is massive, echoey, and unexpected. A striking black-and-white photo exhibition lines the walls—portraits of growers mid-harvest, mid-thought, mid-glass. The mood is stripped-down but soulful. This isn’t a luxury showcase. It’s raw, honest, and intentionally off the radar.

Not every producer speaks English. In fact, most don’t. But that doesn’t matter. Because once the wine is in the glass, the message is universal: here is the grape, the soil, the vintage—before the mousse, before the makeup.

And what you’re tasting is vin clair—base wine with nothing to hide. It’s zippy, feral, sometimes austere, often electric. If your palate isn’t alert, it will be soon.

This is the part of Champagne no one talks about. And yet it’s where everything begins.

Who’s Pouring?

The 2025 edition of Terres et Vins de Champagne brought together some of the region’s most iconic and fiercely independent names in grower Champagne:

• Pascal & Ambroise Agrapart (Avize) – for laser-focused Blanc de Blancs
• Aurélien Laherte (Chavot) – expressive Meunier, cult-favorite cuvées
• Emmanuel Brochet (Mont Benoît) – energy, elegance, and edge
• Alexandre Chartogne (Merfy) – always cerebral, always terroir-driven
• Marie & Olivier Horiot, Vincent Couche, Laure Doquet, Alexandre Lambot, Georges Laval, Tarlant – all pouring wines that tell stories before the sparkle starts

You move from barrel to barrel. Tasting. Thinking. Noticing how some wines whisper and others scream. How a chalky site in Avize tastes completely different from a clay-silt parcel in the Côte des Bar.

And yes, you get to taste the finished Champagnes too. But the real magic? It’s in the not-quite-there-yet wines.

This isn’t a place for performance. There are no booths, no ice buckets, no branded decor. Just growers, pouring what they made, hoping it speaks for itself.

The only decoration—if you can call it that—is the photography exhibit. Moody, intimate, human. It grounds the experience in the people behind the wine.

Meanwhile, the crowd—importers, buyers, sommeliers, journalists—floats in a kind of quiet buzz. There’s something democratic about it: everyone in the same cellar, wearing sneakers or heels, swirling acid bombs in basic stemware.

Terres et Vins de Champagne is not open to the public. It’s an industry-only Champagne tasting, designed for people who want to understand—not just drink—grower Champagne. And that’s what makes it so special. There’s no sales pitch. No sparkle for show. Just tension, texture, and truth.

It’s not about drinking Champagne. It’s about understanding it. At its most bare, its most honest, and—ironically—its most beautiful.