Jestin Extra Brut 2010

A highly complex Champagne of great elegance, whose richness never tips into heaviness. In the glass it shines copper with golden highlights, the mousse remaining fine and persistent. On the nose, bread crust, toasted brioche and hazelnut sit alongside golden apple, ripe pear and candied lemon, joined by a deliberate oxidative character and subtle spice notes.

The grapes come from three growers Hervé Jestin has trusted for decades: David Leclapart in Trépail, Benoît Lahaye in Bouzy, and Vincent Laval, who grows the Meunier on Georges Laval's two and a half hectares in Cumières, farmed organically since 1971. Harvest follows the biodynamic calendar.

50% Chardonnay from Trépail, 25% Pinot Noir from Bouzy, 25% Meunier from Cumières. The base wine aged ten months in Allier oak barrels, after which the Champagne rested around fifteen years on the lees. Jestin decides the level of sulphur for each individual pressing on a case-by-case basis.

Powerful yet precise. The density is carried by vibrant acidity and fine minerality, with echoes of salted lemon and soft stone fruit. The disgorgement is still fairly recent, so the wine currently shows a touch of restlessness; it needs air, and after twenty minutes in the glass it shows quite differently from when first poured. The finish is exceptionally long, with great ageing potential.

With roast Bresse chicken with morels, turbot with hazelnut foam, and aged Comté.

At twenty-four, Hervé Jestin was the youngest cellar master of a major Champagne house, and he ran the cellars at Duval-Leroy for twenty-four years, where he introduced biodynamic practices in the mid-1990s. Since 2006 his own name has appeared on the bottles, with the 2010 marking the fifth vintage. He calls his working method bioenergetics, and holds a dowsing rod over the individual pressings.