It was Aurélien Gerbais’s great-uncle, Ulysse, who first established the family’s roots in Celles-sur-Ource, in the Aube department, upon his return from World War II. Located in the Côte des Bar, this village benefits from Kimmeridgian limestone soils—the same bedrock as that of Chablis in Burgundy—which give the wines a distinctive minerality, quite different from the rest of Champagne.
In 1996, when Pascal Gerbais took over the family estate, the domaine committed to organic and natural methods, earning Ampelos certification. His son, Aurélien Gerbais, who now runs the estate, trained at the Beaune School of Viticulture rather than in Reims—a logical choice when growing up in the Aube department, which is geographically and culturally closer to Burgundy than to the rest of Champagne. There, he rubbed shoulders with a generation of future Burgundian stars and worked notably for Olivier Lamy in Saint-Aubin, before returning to Celles-sur-Ource to join other visionary figures from the Aube region, such as Cédric Bouchard and Ulysse Collin. “I consider myself more Burgundian than Champenois,” he readily admits.
The estate currently cultivates 18 hectares, including a rare plot of Pinot Blanc—a grape variety that has all but disappeared in Champagne—on the slopes of the Ource Valley.
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