A l’Aube de la Côte des Bar Brut Nature 2009 3000ml Doppel-Magnum

A mature vintage Champagne that reveals its origins without detour: not a gram of dosage, but the substance of a warm year and years on the lees. The three-litre format slows maturation even further, so the 2009 shows surprisingly youthful for its age.

The vines grow around Noé-les-Mallets in the southern Champagne region, on southeast-facing slopes between 280 and 320 metres. The subsoil is Kimmeridgian limestone, shot through with fossils of the oyster Exogyra virgula. Farming has been organic since 2011. Delphine Brulez works according to the Simonit-Sirch method of gentle pruning; under her stewardship, the proportion of mycorrhizal fungi in the soil has risen from 18 to 70 per cent.

70 per cent Pinot Noir, 30 per cent Chardonnay. The musts are separated in four passes, finer than usual, and the base wines ferment with wild yeasts in used Burgundy barrels. This is followed by at least five years of lees ageing, considerably longer for this vintage. Bottled as Brut Nature, with no dosage. 12.5 per cent alcohol.

Deep golden yellow, fine bead. Ripe yellow fruit, dried citrus peel, roasted nuts and yeasty spice, carried by a creamy texture held taut by pinching acidity. The finish stays dry and saline.

Oysters, scallops, amberjack sashimi and sardine carpaccio. Equally good with long-aged Comté or Bresse chicken in morel cream sauce.

The house was founded in 1910 by Louise Brison and is now run in its fourth generation by Delphine Brulez, agricultural engineer, oenologist and member of the winegrowers' collective Les Fa'bulleuses. Every Champagne from the house is vintage-dated and every one is Brut Nature.