The Tb points given to this wine are the world’s most valid and most up-to-date evaluation of the quality of the wine. Tastingbook points are formed by the Tastingbook algorithm which takes into account the wine ratings of the world's 50 best-known professional wine critics, wine ratings by thousands of tastingbook’s professionals and users, the generally recognised vintage quality and reputation of the vineyard and winery. Wine needs at least five professional ratings to get the Tb score. Tastingbook.com is the world's largest wine information service which is an unbiased, non-commercial and free for everyone.
Wine Description
The Story
This wine is produced from various regions, namely 45% of Avize, 40% of Mesnil sur Oger, 8% from Villers-Marmery and 7% of Cramant, Oger and Chouilly.
This wine pleases the eye with its clear robe of bronze highlights, typical of the Chardonnay vintage, and with its dense and smooth effervescence. Delicate and elegant to the nose, this Blanc de Blancs offers a unique aroma, well balanced between elegance, liveliness, minerality and pleasant hints of white flowers and mirabelles. The attack is frank and lively. Then, the wine is elegant to the palate, in perfect harmony with the aromas revealed to the nose. The palate is powerful as well as ripe. A happy mixture of ripe white fruits and pleasant notes of delicate citrus. The finish is expressively pure, with aromas nicely persistent and a subtle hint of brioche. The wine has an interesting cellaring potential.
This Brut Blanc de Blancs, excellent as appetiser, offers a good enough structure to be served with fishes such as Bass, Salmon, Saint-Pierre or even a Saint-Jacques carpaccio or a simple Tuna tartar; could also be grilled or served with a mousseline sauce. This wine could also be the perfect complement of a steamed Sea Bream served on ginger and onions.
Vintage 2015
A wet winter and mild spring gave way to an exceptionally dry summer from mid-May onwards. Hot weather prevailed until mid-August, when the skies opened again. Rains gave way to fine, cool, yet sunny weather for the first two weeks of harvest, which commenced on August 29th. The 2015 vintage has a lot of common denominators with the 2003 vintage but the 2015s are showing a better balance of weight and freshness with their average potential alcohol level of 10.5% and total acidity of 6.9 g/l. The quality and ageing capacity of the vintage has been questioned because of the low acidity, but to me the structure of the wine is not the problem; the aromatics are. Initially as vins clairs, I found the wines to come with ample, attractive fruitiness. The vegetal, particularly ash-like aromatics were subdued but have since then become amplified, especially in the vintage bottlings. Drought issues are considered to be the culprit to these widely spread aromatic issues of the year. I have come notably down from my initial assessment. However, most vintage and prestige cuvées are yet to surface from the cellars and their quality will make or break the vintage.