n.v. Domaine de Marzilly – Champagne Ullens “L.P.M.” Meunier Extra Brut, France.
The 100% Meunier Le Petite Montagne cuvée by Champagne Ullens at Domaine de Marzilly is a gorgeous Extra Brut Champagne, which was a wonderful early birthday treat for me, with brilliant mineral tones, luxurious texture and depth, it shows off lemony citrus, golden fig, crisp apple, yeasty brioche, white blossoms, wet stone and hazelnut. This wine and winery were totally new to me, I learned that it was founded by Max Ullens de Schooten, an architect from Brussels, who was doing historical renovations and he was told about a stately building in ruins near Hermonville, in the Massif de Saint-Thierry, the most northerly part of Champagne, which sparked his passion for Champagne. This pale golden La Petite Montagne is pure Pinot Meunier, mostly from the Massif de St-Thierry, a subregion that covers the lieu-dit of Marzilly, which again a new area for me, but an exciting one that I plan to re-visit as much as possible, as it was exceptional and complex in the glass.
Domaine de Marzilly – Champagne Ullens was created by Belgian-born architect Maxime Ullens in 2012 making a new label and turning out some brilliant hand crafted wines, like this all Meunier bottling, which saw two years on the lees with this one being disgorged in August 2020. In an effort to restore his domaine in Hermonville Max turned to Claude and Lydia Bourguignon to provide a micro-biological analysis of the soils. The Bourguignons, who have a great reputation, are well-known in wine circles for their soil analyses in the Burgundy vineyards, discovered old ungrafted vines In the forest on sandy soils that had survived years of neglect, as phylloxera does not like sand. Examination of local records showed that this part of the domaine had indeed been a vineyard before the first world war and is a truly historic site, but was never put on the regional map of classified Champagne vineyards. The winery says the L.P.M. Meunier, as noted above, comes from a single Lieu-Dit and was vinified and aged 11 months in specially coopered used French oak barrels before getting another 24 months in bottle. Thank you to my friend Alex Lallos, who always seems to find new and thrilling Champagnes, and shares them!
($65 Est.) 94 Points, grapelive