Grown on a relatively-small 3 hectare plot of chalky soil located in Bisseiul, Marne department, Ay-Champagne province, this 12.50% ABV sparkling wine is a Premier Cru Blanc de noirs Brut. This means it's 100% pinot noir grapes (grown in a village classified as Premier Cru, or second-highest) and with only 2 grams of added sugar (Brut.) This wine was limited to a production run of 30,000 bottles, or 2500 cases.
Here's something - on the back label, it says the wine was disgorged in March of 2018. Disgorged? What on Earth is that?
Disgorging, known in French as dégorgement, is a process that sparkling white wines undergo to remove the sediment (essentially dead yeast cells, upon which the wine rests after second fermentation) before bottling. There are a couple of ways to do this, one of which includes inverting the bottle and essentially hardening the yeasty bits by dunking the whole thing in a freezing solution and then letting the carbonation pop the yeast out. After this process, the dosage is added and it's off to the retailers! According to Mary Gorman-McAdams, wine writer at Kitchn, sometimes vintners will add the date this process was done (essentially the date the wine completed its production cycle) on the labels. A potential reason why a consumer might want to know the disgorgement date is to compare wines and measure the effects of sediment on wine. A trained wine expert could take two bottles of the same exact wine but which had different disgorgement dates, taste them, and be able to pick out the subtle differences imparted by more (or less) time the wine spent resting on yeast. This might be too fine a point for us "normal" wine drinkers, but an interesting aspect nonetheless.
OK, let's dive in. Opens with a resounding pop, as expected, and projects a slightly sugary aroma reminiscent of apples.
Very delicious. What strikes me most about this is the texture - it's definitely effervescent, but not overly so, and presents full, velvety blankets of green apple and pear. These flavors are very full in the mouth and lush (unlike a Loire Valley sauvignon blanc, which may have the same flavors but on the crisper end of things.) The Champagne is remarkably low on acid, and is soft for a Brut. There's a bright flavor of strawberry on the finish - also very neat and unexpected. There's a nice lingering floral and red berry aftertaste that's quite pleasing.
Overall a superlative sparkling white, and probably my favorite Champagne to date. The fullness of flavor is what struck me the most, and this would be good for anyone who doesn't like the bracing, acidic nature of some Champagnes. Oh, and it paired well with a Cuban Ramon Allones cigar - I think the vegetal nature of the smoke paired well with the fruit-forward nature of the wine. So seek this out if you want to try something neat! It's a bit on the pricy end - $53 - but worth it in my opinion.
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