Jacques Lassaigne Extra Brut Blanc de Blancs Le Cotet NV (750ML)

94+ WA

The latest release of the NV Extra Brut Blanc de Blancs Le Cotet was disgorged in March, and it's based on the 2015 vintage, with some 10% older bottled wines that have been "remise en cercles." Offering up lovely aromas of lemon oil, white flowers, mandarin and pear, along with some autolytic top notes of warm bread, the wine is medium to full-bodied, vinous and structured, with a racy spice of acidity, a tightly wound core and a long, chalky finish. It's a powerful but tensile Blanc de Blancs that comes from a plot of old vines planted in 1964.

One of Champagne's most exciting producers is Emmanuel Lassaigne, an intelligent and thoughtful grower who works with the chalky south- and southeast-facing slope vineyards of Montgueux. Geologically, Montgueux represents a continuation of the strata of the Côte de Blancs—and, incidentally, recent scholarship suggests that the hillside that nurtures vines today may once have been the site of the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains, where Aetius and Theodoric defeated Attila the Hun. It was Emmanuel's father Jacques who in 1950s and 1960s began to replant some of the village's abandoned vineyards, and in 1999, rather than risk losing the estate, Emmanuel quit a successful career in manufacturing to return home. Organic farming, cultivated soils and harvesting at full maturity are his precepts in the vineyards. In the cellar, the wines ferment in wood and stainless steel, and they're disgorged by hand without dosage. The style is powerful and vinous but also racy and electric. William Kelley, The Wine Advocate