Veuve Fourny has been rooted in Vertus since 1856, and today brothers Charles-Henry and Emmanuel Fourny represent the fifth generation of the family. Their Brut Rosé draws on Vertus Premier Cru and other Premier Cru vineyards, with vines averaging roughly 40 years of age on the brown soils over chalk that define this part of the Côte des Blancs. It is a rosé built from a place more closely associated with Chardonnay, but here Pinot Noir plays an equally important role in giving the wine its color, fruit, and structure. The winemaking is deliberately traditional. Pinot Noir is hand harvested and destemmed, then worked with manual punch-downs and a long maceration before being blended with hand-picked Chardonnay. Only the first-press juice is used, and the base wines spend seven months on their lees before bottling with minimal sulfur. The final cuvée draws on three consecutive vintages and incorporates reserve wines kept primarily in cask, adding another layer of depth before the wine begins its second life in bottle. That bottle aging takes place on the lees in Veuve Fourny’s 19th-century cellars, where the temperature remains naturally low and constant. Dosage is held to 6 grams per liter, firmly in Brut territory and consistent with the family’s preference for freshness and restrained sweetness. The house describes red and black fruit on the nose with a fresh palate, a combination that makes this less about overt richness than the balance of Pinot Noir fruit, chalk-grown Chardonnay, and the precision that has defined the Fourny family’s work in Vertus for five generations.