About

About

About

Labruyère Champagne Grand Cru is the relatively young enterprise of top-flight French vignerons, the Labruyère family. The estate has almost 6 hectares located in Verzenay and Verzy, with holdings comprising 70% Pinot Noir and 30% Chardonnay. In 1873, an unofficial ranking placed Verzenay among the top three crus in Champagne, which is why the Labruyères settled upon this village on the glorious Montagne de Reims for their Champagne adventure. Edouard Labruyère chose to apply in Verzenay the same techniques as in Meursault, both in the cellar and vineyard. Since 2012 he’s been working with Vincent Van Waesberghe, chef de cave and chef de vigne, and Nadine Gublin, oenologist from Domaine Jacques Prieur. The team picks a little later than most growers, works only with the cuvée and sends all base wines through malolactic conversion - making for a pure, profound and powerful style of Champagne.

About

CellarHand had long been on a fruitless hunt for another top-flight grower Champagne to complement the outstanding Jacquesson wines in our portfolio. What a blessing, then, to chance upon the superb wares of Jean-Marc & Oriane Sélèque during a trip to the region in late 2017. Based in Pierry, JmSélèque grows Champagnes that are precise in their expression of fruit and soil, where autolysis quietly embellishes without dominating, and where – once you’ve shaken off the distraction of sheer pleasure and try to pick apart the elements – you find seamless harmony and elegant structure. These delicious and utterly confident wines are borne of intricately thought out practices, strictly adhered to. They are as natural, effortless and full of personality as you could wish them to be.

About

Jacquesson has an impressive history. It was founded in 1798 in Châlons by Memmie Jacquesson, son of a wine trader. The house rapidly rose to fame, aided by the fact that Napoleon was reputably a fan. However, everything that we today value about Jacquesson began in 1974 when Côte des Blancs winegrower Jean Chiquet acquired the ‘brand’ and vineyards and moved the domicile of the house to Dizy. After finally persuading their father it was their time to shine, Jean Chiquet’s sons, Jean-Hervé and Laurent Chiquet, literally turned the notion of Champagne on its head with the introduction of their 700 series and the launch of Cuvee 728 hailing from the 2000 vintage, which set out to promote the virtues of a given vintage, rather than seek to blend it away to produce something consistent, rather than something exciting. The 700 series saw each new harvest/vintage be reflected on the label, with the majority of the blend coming from the most recent harvest whilst being supplemented with reserve wines of previous 700 series wines that have been ageing slowly in foudre in the dark and cool cellars underneath their small but beautiful property in Dizy.

Jacquesson sit comfortable between a grower and a small house, owning the majority of the vineyards they use to produce their engaging wines whilst supplementing their own grapes with long- term leases and contracts with vineyards owned by close friends and family members’ found primarily in the Vallée de la Marne and the Côtes des Blancs. The philosophy of the estate has always been on quality over quantity which has seen annual volumes bottled at the estate reduce year-on-year at a time when the majority of estates in the region have gone the other way, and today the quality of wine going to bottle has never been higher.