Ode to the Aube
Join us for a closer look at Champagne’s wonderfully weird subregion to the south.
Home to some of fatcork’s most beloved and influential producers — Elise Déchannes, Fleury, Piollot and more — Champagne’s southernmost region, Aube, is a hotbed of world-class grapes, innovative spirit and winemaking talent. Existing, in a sense, outside the box, far from the spotlight of the Champagne hubs of Épernay and Reims, Aube has always marched to its own beat, making waves and quietly but persistently spreading its influence across Champagne. Guided by deeply rooted family traditions and a fiercely proud and independent spirit, winemakers in Aube craft Champagne that is both profoundly expressive of its terroir and forward-thinking. There’s an undeniable energy in Aube as winemakers continue to push boundaries. Join us as we dig deeper into this remarkable corner of Champagne.
Aube apart
Like the rest of Champagne, Aube is a department in France’s Grand Est region, and although it is separated from the rest of Champagne, it has been part of the legally recognized historic wine-producing province since 1927. Located in the southwestern part of the region, Aube is actually closer to Burgundy, another historic wine-producing province, than it is to the rest of Champagne.
France is made of 18 administrative regions, 101 departments within those regions, subdivisions within those departments and, finally, communes or municipalities. The Champagne region is not an official administrative region. Rather, it’s a historic wine-producing province, protected by law. It’s common to say “the Champagne region.”
Winemakers in the Aube are primarily concentrated in the Côte des Bar, a subdivision of Aube, but when referring to wine from this area, the terms Aube and the Côte des Bar are often used interchangeably. Like its close neighbors, Chablis and Burgundy, the Côte des Bars offers a warmer climate and Kimmeridgian limestone soil — the perfect growing conditions for pinot noir. Pinot noir accounts for roughly 87% of plantings, and chardonnay, pinot meunier and rare varieties like pinot blanc make up the other 13%.
The independence of the Côte des Bar from the rest of Champagne is more than geographical. The landscape also differs greatly from the rest of Champagne. Unlike the dense, patchwork-like tapestry of vineyards in Montagne de Reims, Côte des Blancs and Vallée de la Marne, Côte des Bars vineyards are casually tucked in between forests, farms and streams.
What’s in a name? Côte des Bar describes the area bordered by the villages Bar-sur-Seine to the south and Bar-sure-Aube to the west.
Aube in the news
More than just a pretty place, Aube has played an important role in shaping Champagne as we know it today. Throughout history and in all of the subregion's biggest moments, one family name keeps coming up again and again: Fleury. Emile Fleury founded his family estate in Courteron in 1895. Building his business, he began cultivating Champagne grapes in vineyards nestled into the sunny slopes of the Seine River valley. He sold these grapes to the big Champagne houses, who were eager to buy the high-quality fruit grown from plots packed with nutrient-rich, clay-limestone soil. At that time, phylloxera, a blight of vine-eating aphids, was among the biggest threats to business, and it was only a matter of time before the infestations that were sweeping French wine country arrived in Champagne. Phylloxera came in with a vengeance, decimating vineyards across Champagne beginning in the 1870s. In 1901, Emile was the first grower to graft French pinot noir onto aphid-resistant rootstock from North America, thus erecting the first real defense against the devastating disease. Word spread, and soon growers across Champagne followed suit.
A few decades later, France fell into an economic depression with exports (especially for luxury items like textiles and Champagne) falling sharply from 52 billion in 1929 to just 20 billion a mere three years later. To solve the problem of a plummeting demand for his grapes, Emile’s son Robert Fleury made the decision to pivot from selling grapes to the big houses to making his own Champagne from the grapes he grew. That bold leap of faith placed him among a group of the first Champagne grower-producers to operate in Aube.
Aube ahead on biodynamic farming
Generations of Fleurys have made their mark on Aube and beyond, but the Fleurys are perhaps best known for their early adoption of biodynamic farming methods like composting, planting ground cover and performing tasks in the vineyard according to the seasonal alignment of the planets and phases of the moon. In 1989, under the careful hand of vigneron Jean-Pierre Fleury, Fleury became the first certified biodynamic estate in Champagne. Over the years that followed, Fleury’s influence spread, and the Aube became known for its widespread embrace of biodynamic methods.
Jean-Pierre’s influence had a profound effect on a new generation of vignerons in the decades that followed. Roland Piollot inherited his family domaine in Polisot in 1986, and soon began transitioning the vineyards to organic. Piollot Champagne has been 100 percent organic since 2014, and more recently, the estate earned a Demeter certification for biodynamic farming.
Similarly, vigneron Elise Dechannes took over her family estate in Les Riceys in 2008 and immediately began converting her five hectares of vineyards to biodynamic. She kept her interventions minimal, always connected to nature and gentle on the earth. She discontinued the use of herbicides and pesticides, turning to natural methods of controlling weeds and pests. She picked weeds by hand, turned the soil using a horse-drawn plough and harvested grapes selectively to promote healthy growth and eliminate waste.
As Elise’s biodynamic vineyards began to thrive, her neighbors, many of whom were struggling (and using chemical pesticides) with their own vineyards, took notice. She became an unapologetically outspoken advocate for biodynamic and organic viticulture in Aube. Sadly, after 17 remarkable years, in 2025, Elise announced that she was closing her estate to pursue other interests.
Aube in arms
Seven years after Emile Fleury introduced his ingenious phylloxera fix, growers were still struggling to revive their vineyards. When frosts and torrential rains brought mold and mildew to their already weakened crops, growers’ frustrations reached an all-time high. The big houses, on whom the growers had come to depend, refused to buy what little fruit they produced. Instead, they bought cheaper grapes from outside of Champagne, passing them off as authentic Champagne grapes.
Desperate to survive, growers petitioned the French government to mandate that the big houses buy at least 50% of their grapes from the growers in Champagne. They won, but when the newly formed Institut National des Appellations d'Origine drew the boundaries of the official Champagne appellation, Aube was left out. Members of the institute thought Aube was too far away from the rest of Champagne, too Burgundian in style and too resistant to their control. Vignerons in Aube were outraged, and in 1911, angry growers stormed the streets of Troyes in Aube with pitchforks in hand, destroying cellars, trashing wine shops and setting fires in their path. Troops were sent from Paris to break up the riots, and the INAO gave Aube the designation “Champagne deuxième zone,” allowing them to grow grapes for Champagne’s big houses in the north. It wasn’t until 1927 that Aube was officially allowed into the Champagne AOC.
Aube brings back pinot blanc
Today, Aube is a celebrated part of Champagne, but its independent, revolutionary spirit lives on. In recent years, producers in Aube have been experimenting with a largely forgotten grape from its past: pinot blanc. Fast-ripening and full-bodied but with smaller, more finicky yields, pinot blanc was once a vital part of winemaking in Aube before the AOC banned new plantings of the grape in 1939. Existing pinot blanc was allowed to continue, which was good news for Aube, where most of the plantings were held.
Pinot blanc grows best in Aube in the same soil that nurtures its closest relative, pinot noir. Like pinot noir, pinot blanc grows in tightly packed bunches and performs best when it is carefully pruned throughout the season. It is quite versatile, resulting in expressive wines that are fruity with good acidity.
At fatcork, it’s no accident that our portfolio includes a large number of producers from Aube. We love that this unique, southernmost Champagne region follows their own path and that it is often several steps ahead. Aube’s collective sense of freedom and willingness to experiment shows up in their spectacular cuvées, too. But don’t take our word for it. In this Spring 2026 allocation, all members will discover a perfect example of Aube-made Champagne — the biodynamic and perfectly balanced Piollot Cuvée de Réserve Extra Brut. Cheers to Aube!
