Chaillots, Premier Cru Extra Brut 2015

This Champagne unfolds layer by layer. First come the autolytic notes of the long lees ageing: the crumb of fresh rye sourdough bread and toasted bread. With air, wild raspberries and strawberries emerge, lifted by an ethereal note of fully ripe blood orange oil, followed by salted butter, oyster shell and wet chalk.

The Chaillots parcel lies in Écueil, at the heart of the Petite Montagne de Reims. Géraldine Lacourte and Richard Desvignes farm 8.5 hectares of Premier Cru there, in Écueil and Les Mesneux, mostly south-facing and sheltered by the village forest. In Chaillots the vines are rooted in sand and tuffeau and average 55 years of age.

100 percent hand-harvested Pinot Noir. The must was aged in used 300-litre barrels, the wine matured for five and a half years in the cellar, was disgorged on 16 December 2021 and finished with a two-gram dosage as Extra Brut. 12.0% ABV.

The perlage is delicate and fine-grained on entry, brightening a powerful, red-fruited body. The ripe acidity spans wide, and the wine remains taut, complex and distinctive all the way through the finish.

Oysters with parsley and redcurrants, quail with confit blackberries, Greek yoghurt and mint pesto, or goat cheese crostini with fresh raspberries and coriander-mint pesto.

Géraldine Lacourte and Richard Desvignes gave up their careers in Paris in 2006 and took over the family vines in 2008, the ninth generation of winegrowers. They work without pesticides or herbicides, using preparations made from nettle, horsetail and valerian, harvest by hand and ferment spontaneously. The oak for the cellar's barrels grows in the forest of Écueil, just a few hundred metres from the vineyards.