2007 Champ Alouette Extra Brut Grand Cru Le Mesnil
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Tasting notes
100% Chardonnay from the lieu-dit of Champ d'Alouette in grand cru Mesnil-sur-Oger. Tirage May 2008, disgorged May 2022. Dosage 2 g/l. 14 years sur lattes! Very exciting, from the first catch of breath, which smells like fresh, spring-dark fennel fronds picked and crushed between fingers. There is something compelling about this wine. The compact purity of the fruit, the density of flavour adjacent to and through the elegance of its structure, its strength, its supple resilience. White strawberries, Cape gooseberries, greengage. Tiny tiny bubbles. Mint and piercing coolness, and so much pepper. Life is pulsing urgently through this extraordinary wine. (TC)
Critic scores
Tamlyn Currin, jancisrobinson.com
Tamlyn Currin, jancisrobinson.com
More reviews and scores
100% Chardonnay from a 0.4-ha plot in Le Mesnil-sur-Oger, south-facing. Vinified in old oak casks. Tirage seven months after harvest. 11 years sur lattes. Dosage 2.5 g/l. 2,000 bottles. Aromas of baked cheesecake, baked curd, baked lemon. Smoked almonds and thyme flowers. Herbal and so stony that this wine in your mouth feels like scrambling down the scree of a windswept mountain in cold rain, clutching on herbs and wildflowers to brake the fall, with a view of an achingly deep valley beneath. Broom-blossom honey in the air, struck stones smoking in the mist. The taste of old gold and quarries in the rain. Wide, owning finish. Truly beautiful, if uneasy. A wine for insiders only. (TC)