Blanc de Noirs in Winter

Temperatures are slowly decreasing and days are getting shorter.. The count down towards Christmas has started! The Advent calendar, the fire in the fireplace ... the cold weather forces us to wear sweaters and coats, it makes us prefer a hot dish to a fresh salad, to savor aromatic and complex drinks, more structured than ithe ones we drink in Summer!

The Blanc de Noirs:

The Blanc de Noirs in Champagne are Cuvées made exclusively with black grapes with colorless pulp, Pinot Noir or Meunier or both, in blends with variable percentages characterized by the power of the former and / or the fruity of the latter.

The Pinot Noir represents 38% of the Champagne vineyard and the Meunier 33%. The first dominates the slopes of the Montagne de Reims and the second the Vallée de la Marne while both are very present in the Côte des Bar. The vines enter into symbiosis with the terroir and absorb its essence, in a more or less marked way. The first is a noble grape, it is the most widespread in the Grands Crus and Premiers Crus villages. Its complex and fruity aromas bring body and length to the palate.
In the Grands Crus, from Verzenay to Mailly, its power dominates and dilutes the minerality given by the clay, as shown by the Millésime 2012 Extra Brut Grand Cru by Hervy-Quenardel with an intense and appetizing nose. In calcareous clay soils the Pinot Noir is mineral and round, in the Côte de Bar it is round and fruity, characteristics that we can find in Jean Larrey's Cuvée Noir Intégral Extra Brut.

The Meunier, with the characteristic leaves dusted with flour, hard worker, resistant and tenacious, brings freshness and roundness to the wine. From the notes of cooked fruit and white flowers of the clayey terroir along the Marne, we go to the crunchy fresh fruit of the sandy terroir of the Massif of Saint-Thierry.

Their aromatic bouquets evolve over the years, from adolescence with, among many other notes, raspberry and apple for the Meunier and strawberry and cherry for the Pinot Noir, to maturity with jam and walnuts for the first , figs and jasmine culminating in leather and truffles for the second. Both lend themselves well to the “batonnage” or to the passage in wooden barrels which give the 2 “muscular” lightness, greasiness and creaminess.

Hervy-Quenardel's Millésime 2012 Grand Cru is a perfect example of this. The Pinot Noir vineyards of Hervy-Quenardel are exposed to the north, which allows a long and slow maturation. It is important to harvest at perfect maturity, with a perfect balance between acidity and sugar. During the harvest, between 3 and 4 pressurages are carried out every day and only the best have been chosen for this Millésime. The "moût" has been put for 60% in the barriques and 40% in the stainless steel cuve. 50% of both will then be malolactic-free to maintain the aromatic richness and freshness. For the other 50% the malolactic fermentation will be made respectively in barriques and in stainless steel cuve.

It is important to remember that the barriques are from Bordelais and have already been used for Bordeaux wines for about ten years. In Champagne, the woody note is not sought, but the barriques are used for the oxygenation that makes the wine more rounded and ready for a long aging. 

60% of the Pinot Noir processed in barriques will remain for 6 months, from harvest to March, and will have the batonnage for 3 times: batonnage  gives roundness and aeration to the wine and gives it good aging potential.

The decision of the batonnage is made at the tasting: if when tasted and the wine is too present, the batonnage is required. The duration of the elevage in barrique allows to highlight the finess of the Champagne and stabilizes the wine in a natural way. The disgorgement and the dosage in Extra Brut are then carried out 9 months before selling, to allow the wine to find the perfect balance.

Amazing power, minerality, lightness in complexity, Millésimes and others, accompany our most complex winter dishes with nobility, proving, if there was still a need, that Champagne is a wine, the King of wines, and that dinners with Champagne are so chic!

Cin cin et à votre santé!