First taste: Henriot L’Inattendue 2016

Champagne Henriot, founded in 1808 by Apolline Henriot, is not only one of the few remaining family-owned independent Champagne houses, it is also one of the most venerable. 

Now part of Maisons & Domaines Henriot – headed by eighth-generation Gilles de Larouzière – it is steeped in Champagne’s tradition of blending.

Originally using grapes from Apolline’s Montagne de Reims vineyards located near the villages of Mailly, Verzy and Verzenay, the house expanded its production by incorporating grapes from other sites around the region, as well as using its reserve wines from past vintages.

Scroll down for Yohan Castaing’s Henriot L’Inattendue 2016 tasting note and score

A new direction

Tradition is still at the core of Henriot, so it is newsworthy when such a revered house creates a new cuvée that breaks the codes which normally defines its approach.

The name for this cuvée, L’Inattendue, is well chosen and eloquent as in French it means ‘the unexpected’. 

As Gilles de Larouzière put it at the recent presentation of this new bottling: ‘This is the first time in the history of Maison Henriot that we have bottled a Champagne produced from a single – and singular – terroir, and so it is with a certain emotion that I share this unprecedented creation with you.’ 

Alice Tetienne, formerly with Krug before becoming Henriot’s cellar master in 2020, explains how this new Champagne came into existence: ‘L’Inattendue’s origin was the experience of tasting the 2016 still wines,’ she says. ‘Mr. de Larouzière participates in the blending process, and he and the team were so surprised by the quality that he asked Laurent Fresnet (Henriot’s cellar master at the time) to accept the challenge of producing a Champagne that would highlight the terroir of Avize.’ 

Here is how she describes the decisive factor behind such an audacious decision: ‘The still wines from the 2016 vintage possessed almost laser-like precision and tension as well as significant structure, which was all the more surprising in the context of this very generous vintage in terms of volume. The quality and especially the balance of these wines both delighted and astonished us.’

From that moment on, Henriot decided to produce a Champagne using a single grape variety, Chardonnay, sourced from one vineyard in the Côte des Blancs village of Avize, and also from a single vintage, 2016.

This was a first for the house, as even its premium cuvée Héméra is sourced from six different grand cru villages.

Tale of 2016

Alice Tétienne reminds us that 2016 was a complicated year: ‘The spring and summer were wet, which slowed down the work in the vineyard, especially that of combatting, without delay, vine disease. A hot August brought an end to that problem while the built-up water reserves limited the new issue of hydric stress. Harvest began on September 18th although ripeness levels remained rather heterogeneous.’

She also recounts how swiftly she agreed with the proposition of releasing such a terroir-focused Champagne: ‘When I arrived at Henriot two years ago, as soon as I tasted it I was struck by how good this Champagne was and supported the idea of a special cuvée. Gilles agreed that we should showcase the particularity of the Avize terroir.’ 

However, Tétienne insists that any decision to maintain or adapt such a maverick cuvée (in the context of the house’s history) will depend on their impressions of still wines from upcoming vintages.

See Yohan’s tasting note and score for Henriot L’Inattendue 2016

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