Something Extra: The Blanc de Blancs and Blanc de Noirs from Brochet
Last night, Cinnamon and I had the opportunity to compare two of the top cuvées from Louis Brochet, his Extra Noir and Extra Blanc. Both of these are made in small quantities from the oldest vines on the property, and given long aging on the lees, both over five years. We had the wines with food, some excellent sushi from Dash in San Mateo, but I feel that they would both work well as an aperitif. Although they are both labeled as Extra Brut, do not fear—these are from a new wave of extremely well-balanced Champagnes with great ripeness—they simply do not need a lot of dosage and drink like Brut. I think it is fascinating to enjoy a pure Chardonnay and a pure Pinot Noir Champagne like these next to each other, and we were happy to stopper them up after dinner… In many ways they are showing even better today after a night of being open!
The Louis Brochet 1er Cru "Extra Blanc" Champagne is 100% Chardonnay from old, estate-grown vines in the Premier Cru of Écueil on the mountain of Reims. The batch that we have in now was limited to 4150 bottles, and is 80% from the 2013 vintage and 20% from 2012, all fermented in stainless steel. Some of you might remember older bottlings that were barrel fermented, but Brochet has given that up in search of more elegance. It is dosed at 5g of sugar per liter. He found the elegance he was looking for in this fabulous Champagne, which manages to be airy and graceful without losing the nearly Meursault-like nutty complexity and subtle butter flavor. This has the laid back toast of the most famous names in Champagne, and is frighteningly easy to drink. It is also quite long and multidimensional, and I was happy to spend the evening getting to know it and then have the chance to go back to it again today.
The Louis Brochet "Extra Noir" Extra Brut Blanc de Noirs Champagne is 100% Pinot Noir from two plots planted in the early 1960s to a massal selection that the Brochet family calls “Pinot d’Écueil” and is propagating for future plantations. Some of the vines used to make this have aged out and had to be pulled, so it is, in a way, history in a bottle. The plots it comes from are the two best on the property and both in the Premier Cru of Écueil: the Chaillots (also bottled as single vineyard by Maillart, their neighbor) and the Hautes Vignes. The wine is 80% barrel fermented and 20% stainless and entirely composed of 2012. It, too, is dosed at 5 grams per liter. This is a powerful Pinot Noir, and comes across initially as almost Burgundian in its scale of savory black cherry fruit, but the back end is almost as graceful as the blanc de blancs. I think this is partially due to the deft use of dosage, but mostly due to the extraordinary chalk that the vines are planted in. This has the power, but it is not at all heavy on the back end; rather it is so fresh that we had a hard time restraining ourselves.
These are a great pair—and I can’t recommend having them together strongly enough!
A toast to you!
- Gary Westby