2016 Jacques Lassaigne Clos Sainte Sophie Blancs de Blancs

The 2016 Brut Nature Blanc de Blancs Clos Sainte-Sophie is brilliant, mingling aromas of orange zest, freshly baked bread, green mango, nutmeg and peach with a deft framing of youthful reduction. Medium to full-bodied, fleshy and chiseled, it's concentrated and electric, with terrific depth at the core, racy acids and a long, resonant finish. This intensely flavored, vinous and incisive Champagne is one of the finest wines produced in the Aube today. As readers remember, the Clos Saint-Sophie was once owned by Marcel Dupont, a friend of the French botanist Charles Baltet (author of an important 19th-century treatise on grafting), and Baltet used Clos Sainte-Sophie for experiments. Rather than having any kind of ecclesiastical origin, the vineyard in fact takes its name from Dupont's wife. In 1876, Emperor Meiji of Japan sent two Japanese to Montgueux to study viticulture at the Clos Saint-Sophie, and in 1877, they imported 100 vines to Japan. Thus, the first plantings in history of Vitis vinifera in Japan—on Mount Fuji—are inextricably linked with this small corner of the Aube. Today, the clos is owned by the Valton family—better known as the proprietor of children's clothing brand Petit Batteau—and Lassaigne makes the wine. When most of Montgueux's vineyards were abandoned after the war, the clos was one of the few to remain in cultivation, so it represents a living link with the village's past.