n.v. Tellier Rosé Champagne Extra Brut “Les Massales” Grand Cru, France.
The gorgeous Tellier Extra Brut Rosé has incredible raw sex appeal and precision in the glass with a subtle salmon pink hue and fine yeasty aromatics that leading to a racy brisk dry palate of citrus, strawberry, sour cherry, peach and red apple fruit, along with an exciting vivid mousse, leesy brioche, wet stone, saline and delicate white blossom. Rounded and supple as it warms in the glass, this Tellier, a new to me, keeps the Vitaly and freshness of detail I love in Champagne, highlighting the low dosage Extra Brut style, but revealing complexity and elegance and depth as well, absolutely excellent from start to finish. Made from a mature Cepàge of 40% Chardonnay, 30% (Pinot) Meunier and 30% Pinot Noir from mostly all Grand Cru sites with a terroir influence of 50% Chalk and 50% Flint (Silex) with the vineyards situated in the villages of Moussy, Pierry, and Chavot-Courcourt, which has become a real significant and high quality village in modern times. As with the top notch Grower Fizz, Tellier is committed to purity of place shining through in the wines, but wants vinous textures and impact, preferring to use wood fermentation and lees aging. All the wines at Tellier are vinified in oak casks, typically larger demi-muids and foudres to allow the aromas to express themselves, as they note. Winemaker Quentin Tellier prefers fine-grained oak from forests located in the colder regions of France, which he believes best promote the distinctive nature of his outstanding efforts, as I can attest to here with his brilliant Extra Brut Rosé. This direct press, natural first fermentation Extra Brut Les Massales saw 8 months of oak aging and 40 months in bottle, making for a real treat for Champagne enthusiasts and a very serious effort that way over delivers at this price point, this wine absolutely blows away many Grand Marque basic Rosé bottlings at $85 to 100 plus price points!
I understand through recent reviews, from many people including Antonio Galloni, that Champagne Tellier, based in Moussy, is a more recently established domaine that has started making serious waves, with brothers Quentin and Alexandre Tellier capturing of the energy and passion in region in current times. My friend Alex Lallos, a long time wine professional, at No Limit Fine Wines, who has a keen interest in grower Champagnes really urged me to get some of these wines, saying the Tellier estate is comprised of just three hectares of estate vines, but the average age of the vines here is 60 years old, nearly all are Grand Cru, and all planted to interesting massale selections, making for loads of depth here. Adding that these are ultra-fine beaded, meticulously crafted, absolutely delicious Champagnes from a young producer on the rise, and at just $49.99 Extra Brut and $59.99 per bottle for this Rosé, it’s safe to say this is about as good as it gets for Grand Cru Champagne and Grand Cru Rosé Champagne near this price level, especially these days. The grapes at Tellier are extremely well cared for, with organic methods employed and everything is hand tended with only hand harvesting and ultra severe vineyard selections to promote the best best of each parcel. The grapes come into the cellar here cold, where they are whole cluster and gently pressed and they see a long settling period in temperature controlled tank before going into the mentioned wood casks to complete fermentation and see some batonage in barrel to add richness to the wines. Then in bottle they age further under cork and see very low dosage to stay vibrant and bone dry, as I said, right up my alley style wise. I highly recommend getting Champagne Tellier and in particular this Les Massales Extra Brut Rosé, though they sell out fast, so don’t wait and trust me it is well worth the extra effort to find them, these are stunning bubbles.
($59.95 Est.) 95 Points, grapelive