Les Pierrières (2015)
NV
Region
France › Champagne › Champagne AOC › Côte de Sézanne
Type
white · sparkling · extra-brut
Grapes
Chardonnay
Alcohol
12.5%
Volume
750 mL
Sugar
1.7 g/L
Tasting Notes
In my notes, I have scribbled Ulysse Collin. I didn't vote, so it doesn't count. This guess is hardly educated and based solely on two points. Firstly, the wine has a racy acidity. Secondly, I could not understand if the wine is so complex or so simple. But since I enjoyed it, my score was rather high.
A beautiful bouquet of lemon tart with meringue, wet cellar, mushrooms and crushed apple seeds. Not pompous, but rather delicate and nuanced. Fresh and persistent.
About
40-year-old Chardonnay have southern exposure and are planted on chalky soils that also feature chunks and pockets of a rare black flint or silex noir unique to Coteaux du Petit Morin. Pierrières was Olivier Collin's first bottling, and only bottling, in the 2004 vintage. The fruit is hand-harvested, the clusters destemmed and the grapes gently pressed; the juice is fermented spontaneously and slowly (up to six months) with natural yeasts in mainly-used Burgundy barrels. Reserve wines are held in foudres and tonneaux. The wine is bottled without fining or filtering and aged for 48 months (depends on the year and format, e.g. magnum based on 2007 was aged for 132 months).
