NO.1 FAMILY ESTATE

When Daniel le Brun made the decision to move from France to New Zealand in 1975, he wasn’t just going about as far from home as it was possible to go, he was also making a break from his family’s centuries old roots in Champagne. Records of the first le Brun planting vines in Champagne date from 1624, with the family beginning production of their own wines from the late eighteenth century. Several generations of le Brun continued that tradition. Daniel himself learned the art at the famous School of Viticulture and Oenology at Avize, in the heart of the region.

All of that tradition, history and know-how wasn’t just washed away by antipodean shores though. No, after falling in love with the country and meeting his future wife, Adele, Daniel heard about Montana’s pioneering efforts of viticulture in Marlborough and he made a fateful trip there.

From an initial vine nursery in Rotorua, to the young family making the permanent move to Marlborough and releasing their first wine, the Daniel le Brun NV, in 1985 the rest is history, and history making. These days the le Brun name is now as synonymous with superlative sparkling wine in New Zealand as it was for centuries in Champagne.

Their current venture, No.1 Family Estate, released their first wine on Bastille Day 1999. The le Bruns remain wholly committed to making sparkling wine, and sparkling wine alone, in a single minded devotion to the pursuit of excellence. A devotion that has seen the release now of a number of cuvée to rival not just anything else made in New Zealand, but any sparkling made anywhere – including Champagne.