Vincent Charlot "Fruit de ma Passion" Extra Brut Millésimé, Champagne, France 2018

FROM JENNY & FRANCOIS:

THE WINE: The so-called entry-level wine but make it Charlot: single-vintage and grapes coming from two plots only, the 2 “biggest” ones that Vincent has. The grapes are hand-harvested, destemmed and gently pressed, then ferment spontaneously in neutral barrels. No malolactic fermentation, the wine rests in barrels for about 9-11 months. Bottled with liqueur de tirage and aged on lees for 42 months for the secondary fermentation (prise de mousse), disgorged, and topped up using the same wine, with a dosage of 4g/l (extra brut). This wine has everything! There’s saffron, flowers, delicate spice touch (nutmeg and white pepper), light brioche, sweet wood, almonds, wonderful roundness held by acidic grip… layers just keep on coming, you’ll have fun swimming in them.

THE PRODUCER: “When I drink wine, I want to taste its terroir – this is what I’m in it for. I want to see the personality of the place where it was born, I want to be moved, to create emotion,” Vincent Charlot explains with so much passion that you suddenly feel the need to get your hands on a bottle of good grower Champagne and drink it, NOW. A passion that’s easy to fall for, especially once you discover the natural richness that he’s the shepherd of: the Charlot estate consists of no less than 39 different plots with extremely diverse soils and expositions. “The heavier clayey soils give wines of exotic, vinous generosity; silex translates into tangy gunpowder notes. And my chalk-borne cuvées, such as the L’Or des Basses Ronces, can transport you to the beach at low tide, so strong is their iodine grip and mineral energy,” Charlot poetically praises the virtues of his variegated vineyards.