Le Triumvirat, Brut Nature 2009

A vintage champagne in which two things sit side by side: 2009 was a sunny year, with a warm growing season and cool conditions at harvest in late September, and both are tangible in the wine — ripe fruit and an acidity that nothing smooths over. With no dosage, there's nothing left to mask it.

The grapes come from three lieux-dits in Œuilly in the Vallée de la Marne: Les Crayons on Campanian chalk, Les Sables on siliceous sand, L'Enclume on flint. Benoît Tarlant works the soils only shallowly, lets grass grow between the rows and uses green manure, organic fertiliser, plant infusions and Poussard pruning. The estate has existed since 1687, farms organically and follows biodynamic practices without seeking certification.

58% Chardonnay and 42% Pinot Noir, harvested from 16 to 24 September 2009. Slow gravity pressing, spontaneous fermentation and ten months on the lees in Burgundian oak barrels, vinified plot by plot, with no malolactic fermentation and no fining. Bottled on 3 May 2010, disgorged on 9 January 2023 after 12 years and 9 months of lees ageing in bottle, dosage 0 g/l.

Golden yellow in the glass, with a fine, persistent mousse. On the nose, ripe apple, lemon zest, toasted hazelnut and brioche over chalk and flint. Dry, mineral and saline, with a long finish and a hint of almond.

With pan-seared scallops with hazelnut butter, oysters and a seafood platter, with pan-fried turbot with butter sauce, porcini risotto or aged Comté.

2800 bottles. Tarlant has been bottling champagne with no dosage since the 1970s, decades before Brut Nature became a trend; today over 90 percent of production is made this way. 12.0% vol.