2004 Champagne Jacquesson Dizy Corne Bautray Blanc de Blancs

Jacquesson

France / Champagne / Jacquesson

Corne Bautray is on a steep slope at the top of the hill facing south-west. The soils are rich in clay with plenty of millstone grit gravel, with Campanian chalk underneath. It has 9,000 vines of Chardonnay planted on 1 ha in 1960. The site sees Chablis pruning, cover-cropping between rows and no fertiliser.
June 2004 was dry and cool, July and August mild but rainy, while September was hot and sunny, as was the beginning of October. It added up to an almost ideal growing season, with the fruit harvested on 2nd October 2004. The must was fermented in a 40 hl oak cask with lees stirring and full malolactic fermentation. It was racked twice before bottling without filtration on 13th of May 2005. Just 4,840 bottles and 300 magnums were made, and the wine spent eight years on lees before disgorgement and zero dosage in February 2013.

October, 2013

Tyson Stelzer

The Champagne Guide

95 points

Such is the immense tidal wave of surging, heaving salt minerality of overwhelming texture that crashes through the palate of this dizzying chardonnay that it might fool the unsuspecting with the impression that its phenolically heavy. It’s not. This is the voice of the soil over the tones of the fruit and the expression of the barrels. It's powerful and pristine, with distinctive characters of cherry kernel, fennel, ginger, apple, lemon zest and Campari forming an intense background track to its mineral solo. It needs at least five years to calm down before daring to approach, and will likely live a lifetime.

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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."