NV Champagne Labruyère Prologue (2012 base)

Champagne Labruyère

France / Champagne / Champagne Labruyère

Non-vintage Grand Cru Champagne comprising 70% Pinot Noir, 30% Chardonnay. The team picks the grapes later than many other vine growers to obtain base wines with balance approaching the family's Jacques Prieur Burgundy wines. Gentle whole bunch-pressing, with only the cuvée retained for Labruyère Champagne. Each parcel is pressed and vinifed separately to respect the identity of each terroir. All base wines go through malolactic conversion before being rested. Blending decisions in the new year tend towards an expression of each vintage in the composition of each Champagne. Usually bottled in the spring following harvest to give way to second fermentation. To get the finest bubble, an important vinosity and aromatic complexity, the ageing process “sur lattes” takes between 3 and 5 years, and up to 10 years for millésime Champagnes. At disgorgement the family favours low dosage and the use of the best wines for the liqueur, to produce perfectly ripe, balanced terroir-driven wines.
Dosage 4-5 g/L. Based on the 2012 harvest. Tirage 2013 and then disgorged during 2016 or 2017 (check back label).

April, 2019

Mike Bennie

The Wine Front

93 points

Funky fizz here – toasty, yeasty aromas with whiffs of ginger and clove, apple, brown sugar-on-porridge. The palate is chewy and toasty, freshened with big, vigorous bubbles and drawn long on ginger biscuit and apple tart kind of flavours. It’s got some power, yet grace, and feels complex in its make up. I’m drawn back to it.

September, 2018

Nick Stock

jamessuckling.com

92 points

A Pinot-dominant blend (70%) that has a flavoursome array of berries and brioche on the nose with light, spicy nuances, too. The palate has attractive, vinous, fleshy presence, some chalky oyster-shell notes and a crisp, dry, succulent finish. Drink now.

Standard Bottle Out of Stock

About Champagne Labruyère

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

Nadine has been oenologist at the Labruyère family's Burgundy estate Domaine Jacques Prieur's since 1990. She has been technical manager there since 2009, when she also took the same role at Domaine Labruyère in Moulin-à-Vent. Well-known among fine wine enthusiasts for many years, in 1998 she was name Best French Winemaker by the highly respected Revue du Vin de France. She is an advocate of sustained farming, precise winemaking and optimal ripeness.