2012 Champagne Leclerc Briant, Château d'Avize, Blanc de Blancs, Grand Cru, Brut Zéro

Dosage 2g/L. Made from 100% Grand Cru grapes.

Smells fresh with lemon and soft floral scents. Delicate and refined, this is crips, sharp and piercing yet also layered and rich. Bitter lemon rind mixes with honeyed orange and some pie crust savoury elements to give real character. A little bit woody still, just peeking out, in contrast to the fruit, still showing its youthfulness. After a few minutes all the flavours seem much brighter in the glass, more evocative and expressive. Thrillingly precise, dry and crisp.

Drink 2022 - 2038

2.5ha of vines, 12%abv. Tasted twice, loved it both times, powerful depth of flavour. Brut zero 2g/l dosage), Blanc de Blancs, 100% Grand Cru.

One of a handful of single vineyard châteaux in Champagne, now being made by Leclerc-Briant although they are not owners). Crisp, clean, touches of green apple on the nose but there is weight behind this and it opens to show plenty of quince, hazlenut, biscuit and flaky pastry character, not quite as far as brioche at this point although it will develop over the next few years. The first wine to be released under the new regime, with Hervé Jestin chef de cave, as for Leclerc-Briant he was in fact already making wine here under the previous owners). Ageing in neutral oak casks, biodynamic viticulture.

Drink 2022 - 2038