Jacques Lassaigne 'Le Cotet' Blanc de blancs Extra Brut

"The wine shows a beautifully pure, complex, iodine and chalky bouquet mingled with ripe apple and citrus aromas. Full-flavored and full-bodied on the palate, this is a pure and lingeringly salty, very mineral and well structured Champagne of great purity and expression. It's very long and bone dry, of great finesse and elegance. This stringent and grippy Cotet is still very young but shall develop well over the next ten years easily, probably even 15 years." Robert Parker's Wine Advocate 93+

Jacques Lassaigne is a 4.7-hectare family vineyard located in Montgueux. The vineyards boast prime southeastern exposure and consist entirely of Chardonnay. The Montgueux vineyard sites were originally held for the Montrachet of Champagne and are located near the gates of Troyes—the former capital of Champagne. This area is technically part of the Aube department, but is much further north than what people typically think of as the Aube, in the Cote des bars which features wines often primarily made from Pinot Meunier. The terroir in Montgueux is nearly identical to the growing sites found further north in le Mesnil, as they share the same limestone vein —this is exceptional terroir for making great champagne. An intense backbone of acidity is often present in these wines, but since it is located further south than the storied Cotes des blancs, ripening is not as much of an issue. The non-vintage Blanc de Blancs is a blend of nine different vineyard sites & two successive vintages.

Emmanuel Lassaigne, Jacques’ son who now runs the vineyard, began working the vines in 1999, and made the bold decision to craft wines from individual parcels. At the time his local neighbors thought of him as a fool and didn’t understand the methods behind his madness. Emmanuel makes all the important decisions regarding the wine virtually alone, and experiments boldly in ways that baffle us with his courageousness, for when he decides to make a change, he isn’t able to fully realize the results of that change for another 3, 4, 5 or even 10 years.

The initial tank or barrel fermentations of all Emmanuel’s wine is carried out with only indigenous yeast. He introduces sulfur minimally at pressing to prevent oxidation, and then never adds any sulfur again. Emmanuel disgorges all the bottles by hand himself, a very uncommon practice in Champagne, where machine disgorgement is the norm. He developed this technique so that he wouldn’t have to top up the bottles after disgorgement.

The non-vintage Cuvee Le Côtet Extra Brut is a 100% single vineyard Chardonnay from 50-year-old vines on very poor chalk soil. Fermented in 80% stainless steel and 20% 228-liter barrels, this cuvée is based 90% on the 2010 harvest, whereas the other 10% consist of older vintages. Robert Parker's Wine Advocate

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