Pierre Gerbais

The Gerbais family has farmed in Celles-sur-Ource since the 1930s, with the contemporary estate's commercial position built primarily under Aurélien Gerbais's operational leadership from the early 2000s onward. Aurélien took over from his father, who had built the estate into a respected mid-tier Aube grower, and reformulated the commercial range around single-parcel cuvée transparency and rare-grape advocacy. The estate's commercial visibility grew steadily through the 2010s on the back of strong critical reception for the rare-grape work, particularly L'Originale (Pinot Blanc).

• Gerbais family farming in Celles-sur-Ource since the 1930s
• Aurélien Gerbais took over operational leadership in early 2000s
• Reformulated range around single-parcel transparency and rare-grape work
• Commercial visibility grew through 2010s on rare-grape critical reception

Pierre Gerbais farms approximately 18 hectares of estate vineyards across Celles-sur-Ource and surrounding Côte des Bar villages. The estate's holdings include all three Champenois grape varieties plus rare-grape plantings of Pinot Blanc, which has become one of the estate's commercial signatures. Pinot Blanc was historically used as a blending variety in Champagne but largely abandoned in the modern era, with only small acreages surviving. Aurélien's L'Originale cuvée is one of the most internationally visible Pinot Blanc Champagne expressions, alongside Cédric Bouchard's La Bolorée. The work has helped reframe Pinot Blanc within contemporary Aube grower-Champagne discourse.

• Approximately 18 hectares across Celles-sur-Ource and surrounding villages
• All three Champenois grape varieties plus rare-grape Pinot Blanc plantings
• L'Originale cuvée: 100% Pinot Blanc; one of few commercial bottlings in modern Champagne
• Pinot Blanc work parallels Cédric Bouchard's La Bolorée Aube Pinot Blanc cuvée

The Pierre Gerbais range is organized around single-parcel cuvées, each named for the lieu-dit it comes from. L'Originale (100% Pinot Blanc from a single parcel), La Loge (single-parcel Chardonnay), Champ Viole (single-parcel Pinot Noir), and L'Audacieuse (Pinot Blanc-led with Chardonnay) anchor the range. The cuvées share a stylistic family (low intervention, indigenous yeast, low dosage, extended bottle aging) but distinguish through the source parcels' terroir variation. The methodology aligns with the broader Aube grower-Champagne movement: single-parcel transparency, low-dosage finishes, and varietal experimentation that distinguishes Aube grower work from Côte des Blancs and Montagne de Reims grower-bottlers.

• L'Originale: 100% Pinot Blanc from a single parcel
• La Loge: single-parcel Chardonnay from chalk-clay site
• Champ Viole: single-parcel Pinot Noir blanc de noirs
• L'Audacieuse: Pinot Blanc-led with Chardonnay component

Beyond the single-parcel cuvées, the Pierre Gerbais range includes Cuvée Tradition (the volume face: a multi-village blend showing the estate's three-grape-plus-rare-grapes character), Grains de Celles (multi-village blend), Brut Nature (zero-dosage multi-vintage), and Champ Viole Rosé (saignée from Pinot Noir). The estate's commercial scale sits in the middle of the Aube grower-Champagne range: larger than Cédric Bouchard's tightly-allocated Roses de Jeanne range, smaller than the major Côte des Bar cooperative producers. Critical reception has been consistently strong across the 2010s and 2020s, with the rare-grape work in particular drawing international attention.

• Cuvée Tradition: volume face, multi-village blend
• Grains de Celles: multi-village blend with three-grape character
• Brut Nature: zero-dosage multi-vintage cuvée
• Champ Viole Rosé: saignée-method Pinot Noir rosé

Pierre Gerbais sits within the broader Aube grower-Champagne movement alongside Cédric Bouchard (Roses de Jeanne), Vouette et Sorbée, Marie-Courtin, and others, with Aurélien's rare-grape advocacy adding a methodological dimension that distinguishes Pierre Gerbais within the movement. The commercial reframing of Aube grower-Champagne over the 2000s and 2010s has been a collective achievement of these producers, each contributing through different methodological commitments: Bouchard's single-vineyard / single-grape / single-vintage, Vouette et Sorbée's biodynamic-oxidative work, Marie-Courtin's single-parcel multi-vinification, and Pierre Gerbais's rare-grape and single-parcel emphasis. The movement has positioned the Aube as the Champagne sub-region most aligned with the contemporary grower-Champagne idiom.