Description
This is a lovely, delicate style of champagne with fine bubbles (liqueur de tirage at 22g/l instead of the more typical 24g/l for the secondary fermentation), showing very pure citrus fruits with good energy, a hint of quince, brioche and a saline, mineral flavour. It comes from 35yo vines planted in sandstone, clay and chalk in Merfy. Made from the 2021 vintage mainly with some reserve wines, it was disgorged in November 2023, dosage 2.75g/l.
Chartogne-Taillet based in Merfy just north-west of Reims and run by Alexandre Chartogne is hitting new heights of excellence. Starting out in 2006 at the age of just 23, Alexandre worked briefly with Selosse, who has heavily influenced his ideas on viticulture (although their winemaking styles are radically different).
By choosing to work with plots, I continue the work of understanding and interpreting nature. I try to capture the natural wealth and translate it in the best way in my cellar, without modification
Setting out to understand all his terroirs and sub-soils (clay and sand over chalk), Alexandre has worked closely with renowned soil analysts Claude and Lydia Bourguignon, comparing the still wines he made from each lieu-dit to 17th-century family records of barrels of wine from the same terroirs. These were sold to the monks in a local abbey, who knew their stuff and paid up to ten times more for wines from certain parcels, and Alex notes that there was an incredible correlation between the plots highlighted for their qualities by the Bourguignons, and the monks preferred parcels.
12% / 75cl
