2005 Champagne Jacquesson Avize Champ Caïn Blanc de Blancs

Jacquesson

France / Champagne / Jacquesson

THE LIEU-DIT
Champ Caïn - faces due south at the foot of the hill
THE SOIL
Clayey, sandy, silty structure with a lot of chalk gravel, resting on Campanian chalk
THE VINE
12,000 vines of Chardonnay planted on 1.3 ha in 1962. Chablis pruning, cover-cropping between rows, no fertilisers.
THE YEAR
June was dry and cool, July and August mild but rainy. September was hot and sunny, as was the beginning of October. An almost ideal growing season
THE GRAPES
Harvested 4th of October 2004. 11° alc. 6.6 gr/l acidity
THE WINE
Vinified in a 75 hls oak cask, lees stirring, malolactic fermentation fully achieved, two rackings before bottling without filtration on 13th of May 2005
8 years on the lees before disgorgement in February 2013
Dosage 1.5 g/L

October, 2015

Tyson Stelzer

The Champagne Guide 2016-2017

97 points

The terroir of Avize is so all-consuming that you can literally smell the violent tidal wave of surging salt minerality coming. The bouquet is a salty sea breeze, a steamy whiff of bath salts that heralds an intricately crystalline salt structure. The frothing, energetic interplay between chalk minerality and beautiful acid line is captivating, amplified by subtle barrel texture and long lees age that gently massage the cut of Avize. Magnificent freshness and coiled potential, even at a decade of age, suggest that it calls for another decade yet to fully come into its own. There are few 2005 Champagnes of which this can be said. Jacquesson has conjured one of the finest.

March, 2016

Stephan Reinhardt

The Wine Advocate

95+ points

Very discreet but mineral and complex on the fresh and chalky nose opens the 2005 Brut Grand Cru Avize Champ Caïn. This is a very elegant, highly complex and very salty Grand Cru made from a south-facing 1.35 hectare single vineyard Chardonnay, which was planted in 1962 on pure limestone with almost no top soil. The millésime 2005 is a highly complex and refreshing, firmly structured and tension-filled wine of great finesse and elegance. It's all this: pure terroir, pure chalk and pure Jacquesson, but most of all - extremely stimulating. However, don't waste its talents because I suppose the future of this outstanding Champagne is far ahead from now.

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About Jacquesson

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 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. His sons Jean-Hervé and Laurent Chiquet are the present custodians of the Jacquesson trading house, which manages to cover almost 90% of its grape requirement from its own vineyards. These are located in the Grands Crus Aÿ, Avize and Oiry, and in the Premiers Crus Hautvillers, Dizy and Mareuil-sur-Aÿ. Additional grapes are only bought from growers who follow exactly the same methods as the Chiquets. The fruit is pressed by Jacquesson itself in its four presses, three of which are located in Dizy and one in Avize.


About

Laurent and Jean-Hervé Chiquet see themselves primarily as winegrowers who cultivate the land and do everything with the aim of obtaining the best possible grapes. And from there, the brothers have been ready to break with convention in order to deliver the best possible wine every time - hence the decision to introduce the 7-series non-vintage wines instead of the traditional house NV. In his 2018 article entitled Champagne’s Top Five Movers & Shakers, Tyson Stelzer summed up the approach pretty well: "It’s been 40 years since Jean-Hervé and Laurent Chiquet’s family purchased Jacquesson, 30 years since the brothers took control, 20 years since they turned champagne’s non-vintage concept on it head with their controversial ‘700 series’ cuvée, and ten years since they pulled their most cunning stunt of all by slashing production to ramp up quality. And ramp up it has."