nv Jacques Lassaigne, Le Cotet, Extra Brut, Blanc de Blancs Champagne, France.
Again, this Jacques Lassaigne grower producer Champagne is beautifully crafted and vibrant stuff, the Le Cotet Blanc de Blanc Extra Brut from Emmanuel Lassaigne is exciting, lovely and finely tuned bubbly with a brilliantly beading, vigorous and smooth mousse and crisp minerally detail. This vibrant, saline and chalky all Chardonnay cuvée comes from a single old vine parcel planted in the 60’s and on very thin tuft (chalky) soil in the area of Montgueux in Champagne’s southern end. Part of this blend saw neutral oak barrel aging to allow more complexity and slight oxidation while the rest is raised in tank, both on the lees and with loads of acidity. This is a perfect vivid, brisk and vital Extra Brut, that is exceptionally bone dry, racy and distinctive, but with surprising depth, richness and length. The palate is filled with citrus, white flowers, apple and hints of hazelnut, yeasty brioche and steely mineral tones as well as having, as the prior release I tired had, flashes of dried honeycomb, creamy lemon curd, clove spice and wet river stones. This is pure, chalk driven and energetic Champagne at it best, in my preferred style, offering plenty of layers of complexity for the grower producer and or terroir lover, but will also turn the heads of the novice Champagne drinkers used to the big houses, plus this Le Cotet is a fabulous cuisine partner gaining lush mouth feel with food. This is Champagne, that while happy going with oysters and caviar, can cut into fattier dishes and or fine Sushi, in particular Toro, Saba and Uni, which would be my preference. In the cellar, the Lassaigne wines ferment in a combination of wood and stainless steel and see comparatively long lees aging before tirage, the winery explains, and are disgorged by hand without dosage. The style here at Champagne Jacques Lassaigne is almost perfectly balanced between powerful and vinous impact, and a more electric and riveting expression.
Lassaigne’s Champagne is classy stuff and is in the same league of quality characters such as Benoit Dehu, Prevost, Agrapart and Boulard, this is unique bubbly that deserves plenty of attention. Certainly I agree that Lassaigne is one of the best and most interesting all the Chardonnay grower fizz wines, and Emmanuel Lassaigne is one of the region’s most exciting producers. I learned that he works with mainly sunny south and southeast-facing sloping hillside vines in Montgueux, which is an isolated outcropping of chalk near Troyes that is, as the winery notes, the geological continuation of the strata of the famous Côte de Blancs. Interestingly, recent studies, as the winery continues, suggest that the hillside that nurtures the Lassaigne vines today might have been the site of the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains, where Aetius and Theodoric defeated Attila the Hun (the first-ever victory for European forces over the Hun army). Emmanuel’s father Jacques Lassaigne who, in the 1950s and 1960s, began to replant some of the village’s abandoned vineyards and started growing some impressive fruit, and is founder of this Champagne house. Things started to decline back in the mid nineties, so in 1999, rather than risk losing the estate, Emmanuel quit a successful career in manufacturing to return home at went to work on the vineyards. He converted to all organic farming and began harvesting at full maturity to avoid a sweeter dosage. Lassaigne employs methods to improve soil and vine health with rolled cover crops and under-row cultivation, and in some parcels “tressage” (gently pulling the canopy shoots away from the clusters) that is a more holistic method than hedging, to avoid cutting the shoots, to get better exposure to the sun. I firmly believe that these Lassaigne offerings represent the best in what can be achieved a small artisan producer and, that while not cheap, are solid values for what you get in the bottle, especially this stunning Le Cotet, which I couldn’t resist if I tried!
($85 Est.) 95 Points, grapelive