NV Chartogne-Taillet - Extra Brut Cuvee Les Barres
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Derived from the 2016 vintage and disgorged in May 2021 with four grams per liter dosage, the new NV Extra-Brut Blanc de Noirs Les Barres (Pinot Meunier) is the best wine I've ever tasted from Chartogne. Unfurling in the glass with notes of confit lemon, aromatic bitters, orange rind, dried white flowers, buttery pastry and baking spices, it's full-bodied, deep and seamless, with a textural attack that segues into a layered core of fruit that's animated by a pillowy mousse and girdled by racy acids. Concluding with a long, intensely sapid finish, this is worth a special effort to seek out.
Critic scores
Tamlyn Currin, jancisrobinson.com
Jancis Robinson MW
More reviews and scores
The NV Les Barres Extra brut is a single vineyard Champagne that is entirely based on 100% ungrafted Pinot Meunier, planted in 1952 on deep soils, just four kilometers away from the plot used for the Beaux Senses Meunier. Although not declared as a vintage, the Barres is entirely based on 2011. The wine opens with an intense biscuit and coconut flavor on the nose. Medium to full-bodied, very dry and salty on the palate, this is a highly complex and lovely, grippy Meunier. This Champagne is provided with great tension and a long, intense finish. This will be an excellent wine with food (especially fish) in a couple of years.
Meunier, vintage 2008. Ungrafted vines. Creamier than the cuvée from grafted vines. Attractive texture even if the fruit flavours are a tad coarse. (JR)
100% Meunier, from a rare 0.5-ha vineyard of ungrafted 65-year-old vines which were replaced after the second world war but on their original rootstock. On sand with limestone. From the 2006 vintage. Aged in barrel, wild yeast and no dosage. Strangely enough, this wine smells grapey – something I associated with only Muscat. A distinctly tropical nose. Certainly not a lot of finesse on the palate but very bold and broad with glorious passion fruit and oranges. Rich, weighty and concentrated. Lovely acidity but a wine that needs food. Duck, I think, would be a good partner. (TC)