NV Jacques Lassaigne La Colline Inspiree

The multi-parcel Lassaigne NV Extra Brut Blanc de Blancs La Colline Inspiré L110713 is altogether finer-edged, more subtle, and more diversified in flavors and aromas than its vintage 2009-based counterpart tasted alongside. Nips of cress and musky rose radish as well as overtones of white truffle and pistachio oil inflect the brightly juicy fresh lemon that goes on to dominate a polished, palpably dense yet vivacious and consummately refreshing palate. Montgueux represents an isolated Chardonnay-dominated outpost of Champagne on an impressive hill just outside the city of Troyes, roughly halfway between the Sezanne and the southern Cotes des Bar. This town’s once strong reputation faded in the course of the 20th century so that when Jacques Lassaigne and a few others began a revival in the 1970s, there was just one remnant of older vines, at the Clos St. Sophie, whose immaculately kept late 19th century records are still intact and whose vines will inform Jacques’s son Emmanuel’s newest bottling. (The 2011 and 2012 renditions already fascinate from barrel.) When Emmanuel Lassaigne took over here, he committed himself to showcasing Montgueux through a sustainable viticultural regimen without fertilizers and a combination of restraint and staunch principle in the cellar – minimal sulfur, no filtration, low pressure, no dosage; ambient primary fermentations, hand disgorgement without freezing the cap – that would fit his singular stylistic vision. “I don’t want demonstrative wines” is the way he puts it, though a translation as “showy” or “ostentatious” might be closer to the mark. The low pressure aspect of these wines is not only in Lassaigne’s view a virtue in its own right – encouraging textural tenderness and nuance – it also mitigates alcohol, which on the steep and largely southerly-exposed slopes of Montgueux is not an insignificant concern. I’ll report further next year about the experimental ways of this grower (whose wines I imported at the time that he took over his family’s vines). In my experience, Chardonnay grown in this village is quite unlike that of any other place in the world that I have visited, much less Champagne. Lassaigne supplements his merely ten acres of vines with purchases from vineyards where he can, to a significant degree, call the shots. We can expect later releases now that, as Lassaigne puts it, “I have my clientele and no more pressure from the bank. In any case, when you start out, you don’t know – nobody can know – when your wine will be ready to drink. But my goal is to capture the point of maximum pleasure.” Lot numbers here, incidentally, follow a form one sees quite often – too bad, though, that there aren’t remotely enough growers following any one set of conventions – namely to list the dominant vintage plus one (i.e. for the year the wine went into bottle) followed by the month and year of disgorgement. Importers: Thomas Calder Selections, Paris (with various importers); fax 011-33-1-46-45-15-29, also Jenny & Francois Selections, New York, NY; tel. (646) 322-4254

Very small production. Light and focused and very pure. Slim-line wine with real structure. (JR)