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Wine Description
The Story
La Closerie Les Béguines | a place known as ‘Les Béguines’.
Closerie’ means : vine plot of around 5 to 7.5 acres minded by a tenant
Les Béguines’ means : vine shoots swath. A bundle is composed of several béguines
Area : around 5 unsegmented acres – border under the name of ‘Champagne’
Geology : paleocene 59 -55 million years – limestone sand of the Thanétien
Altitude : 120m
Grape variety : 94% pinot meunier- massal selection 3309 and 5BB teleki rootstock planted in 1964. 2% pinot gris massal selection- riparia and 41B rootstock planted in 2000.2% chardonnay – massal selection- riparia and 41B planted in 2000. |
Density : of 8333 to 10000 plants per hectare
Orientation : north-south
Undocumented viticulture: manual work has been produced after observation. Adapted to the natural habitat without dogmatism.
- Since 1994 no more insecticides : pionneering reintroduction of typhlodromes
- Since 1996 no more herbicides : soil work by scratching and weeding on the whole estate
- Since 2000 work on mycorhization
- Use of moistening sulphur and absolute restriction in use of copper
First harvest : 1987
First produced wine : 1998
Fermentation : Spontaneous fermentation – lazy vinification
Fermentation 10 month ageing on the whole in wood barrels
Malolactic fermentation without obligation
Without machine or electricity
Barrels in different woods and capacities of 225, 228, 400, 500, 600 litres
Slow bottle filling by gravity
Exclusively extra brut since 1998. Dosage : 2.5 g per bottle
Drawings, label and back label text : Jérôme Prévost
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.
