Les Chemins d'Avize Grand Cru Blanc de Blancs Extra Brut 2016

Light golden yellow with a fine mousse. The nose is sensual and juicy, at once powerful and precise: pastry with the finest vanilla, yellow apples, pears and greengages, along with lemon confit and orange peel, but above all fine spices, a touch of ginger and crème fraîche.

The Chardonnay comes from the two neighbouring parcels Chemin de Plivot and Chemin de Flavigny in the Grand Cru Avize. The vines are 50 years old. Larmandier-Bernier farms 16 hectares across 17 parcels along the Côte des Blancs, from Vertus through the Grand Crus Cramant, Chouilly and Oger to Avize, on pure chalk that gives the wines their vibrant minerality.

Pure Chardonnay, gently pressed, the juice only very lightly settled and brought straight into wood. Both alcoholic and malolactic fermentation begin spontaneously in Stockinger casks and vats. In the first year the wine matures on the lees, without filtration or fining, after which the bottles rest for at least five further years sur lattes. Six months before release, each bottle is hand-disgorged, with a dosage of 2 g/l, making it Extra Brut. 12.5% vol.

Expansive, silky, almost soft at first, before the minerality comes through in full. Ripe lemons and grapefruits, nougat and pear cream, a touch of vanilla and cinnamon, along with a hint of ripe sweetness. The acid structure remains sensual rather than demanding, the volume as impressive as the energy: a great, noble Champagne of accomplished density and length.

The house's fourth single-vineyard Champagne. Pierre Larmandier banned herbicides in 1992 and switched fully to biodynamic farming in 1999; today Sophie and son Arthur work alongside him. Even the foil capsule over the cork is absent.