Description
This is the most renowned house calling card, with roughly 2500 cases of this remarkable value play made to exhibit purity, delicacy, and mineral lace from the home estate’s soft clay and chalk soils in southern Épernay and Chavot. The current disgorgement is from roughly 50% 2016 base, with a ’15/14 This is the most renowned house calling card, with roughly 2500 cases of this remarkable value play made to exhibit purity, delicacy, and mineral lace from the home estate’s soft clay and chalk soils in southern Épernay, Chavot, and a bit of Vertus this year. Now that i’ve seen the parcels that inform this bottling in his home town of Chavot, it is no surprise why it is so good. From gently sloped, vibrant/healthy, fluffy soils just at the foot of the village with roughly 40cm of clay on top of the chalk mother rock, it presents immediate salty, chalky appeal, intermingled with yellow fruited aromatics, some leesy autolysis, all in intense and crystal clear fashion. In the mouth, the same flavors are echoed, with an intensity, enrobed precision, and positively mouthwatering salty yum yum that is Brut Nature on chalk executed at the highest level. Certainly, the lower yielding 2016 vintage has allowed for wonderful concentration. This only reaffirms my belief that for the money, this one is a hop up and down no brainer, exhibiting the appetizing virtues of the Brut Nature style at its best, something that requires a vigilant and diligent vigneron to be successful, as without gorgeously healthy ripe fruit from the vineyard, one doesn’t have a natural sense of fruit sweetness, as well as cannot hide imperfections behind the gloss of residual sugar……I think of this stylistically as the white grape equivalent of Cédric Bouchard’s Val Vilaine wine…..Large formats to boot!!! A little * awarded here, and gets the value hound no brainer recommendation and then some….. In light of the tariff implications to come, this only makes the imperative that much greater to get a case or two…..
“The NV Brut Nature Blanc de Blancs is stunning. Even better, it is one of the very finest Champagnes readers will find in its price range. Bright, sculpted and highly nuanced to the core, the Blanc de Blancs sizzles with tension. The purity of this Chardonnay fruit comes through beautifully. Citrus, white flowers, mint and white pepper add striking top notes. This release is a blend of 50% 2016 and 50% reserve wines from 2015 and 2014. The non-dosé style works especially well here. No dosage. Disgorged: April, 2019.” 93 Antonio Galloni
