Laure Nicaise and Clément Préaux

The Champagne house Louis Nicaise is located in the Premier Cru village of Hautvilliers made famous by Dom Pérignon, and also known as the birthplace of Champagne. The story started in 1928 when Lucien Nicaise, the son of a winemaker from the village of Cramant moved to Hautvillers, the village his wife came from. He then acquired his first vines in this most beautiful area of Champagne, and a few years later he produced his own Champagne Lucien Nicaise, which, even then, received great recognition in Paris. In 1949, his son Louis, aged 22, took over the running of the estate, which he renamed Champagne Louis Nicaise. Full of energy and ambition, he purchased more vineyards situated on the Hautvillers terroir. At that time, it was extremely hard for a Champagne grower to rival the large Champagne houses, which were extremely prominent. Therefore, Louis took the brave decision to join the village cooperative, founded by his father a few years earlier. The modern history of the estate started in 1976, when Louis and his son Régis built a new press at the estate, with the firm determination to replicate what their father and grandfather had done: producing their own Champagne. Today, the estate of Louis Nicaise accounts for 10 hectares planted on the very best terroirs of Hautvillers in the heart of the UNESCO World Heritage Site. Laure Nicaise grew up in the vineyards alongside her father. Following a diploma in viticulture at the reputed school in Avize, where she specialised in agronomy and environmental issues, she subsequently studied business, and she worked for various well-respected wine merchants in Reims. Although she had wanted to pursue her studies and had dreamed of travelling to different wine regions while gaining experience, her father was adamant that she should return home. So, in 2002, aged 20, Laure settled on the estate with her parents, where she honed her winemaking skills working alongside her father. Over the next few years, the father and daughter team completed the overhaul of the production facilities. The young woman also instilled in her father the need to farm more sustainably in order to care not only for their vines, but, first and foremost, for their soil. Champagne Louis Nicaise is located on a truly wonderful terroir, and for Laure, it is essential to focus on the terroir so as to express its uniqueness in their Champagnes. In 2012, Clément Préaux, whom Laure had met during her college years in Avize and who had subsequently become her husband, joined the family estate. Clément is a native of the Champagne region, however, from the stretch that is more widely known for its agrarian traditions than its winemaking, and although his family enjoys the fine bubbles of the area, they were never involved in viticulture or winemaking. Passionate about nature and enthusiastic on the subject of wine, Clément decided to study agronomy, followed by viticulture and oenology in Avize, where he specialised in the complex qualities within the vineyard environment. And while studying, the young talented man gained invaluable experience and savoir-faire at Domaine Jacques Selosse, under the wing of Anselme Selosse, the Champagne trailblazer who led the way in the production of wines expressing individual terroirs, combinations of vintages, along with the minimisation of dosage. This was followed by a job with Coopérative du Champagne Mailly Grand Cru, before settling at Louis Nicaise. Since 2014, Laure and Clément have been at the head of the estate, and today they show total commitment to their vines, tending them manually, respecting their soil, and listening to nature to find answers. In the pristine cellar, the couple approaches winemaking with sheer determination to express the various vineyard characters through the grape. While they embrace progress, they value the tradition