Description
Champagne Renaudin, Premier Cru “L’Espiegle”
Some things aren’t meant to make sense. Sometimes, you just go with it, thankful that the opportunity existed in the first place. That’s how we’ve felt about previous offers of Champagne Renaudin’s 1990, 1996, and 2008 “L’Espiegle” prestige cuvées. The wines are always phenomenal and ridiculously affordable, despite undergoing one of the region’s most painstaking aging regimens. Today’s recently disgorged and just-arrived 2006 is no different: It hails from 100% Premier Cru raw material, was vinified in French oak, and spent over 13 years on lees.
Based on those specs, I’m already prepared to pay $100 (and well over $200 for the famous Grandes Marques) but Renaudins “L’Espiegle” doesn’t come remotely close at $68. This truly shatters every price-to-quality convention we’ve been taught. Please note small quantities were disgorged and a very limited amount made it onto our soils, so that leaves you with two options: (1) grab as much as you can muster now or (2) begin the long and torturous search of finding a similarly priced, equally impressive 15+-year-old Premier Cru Champagne. The year is young, but it’s hard to imagine discovering a better Vintage Champagne value than this!
Although passed through many hands and been rebuilt, Champagne Renaudin still upholds the traditions of an ancient estate (Château de Conardins) that was first established in 1724, making it one of the oldest enterprises in all of Champagne. Today, they own just 12 hectares that are spread throughout villages in the Coteaux Sud d’Épernay and the Côte des Blancs. Most of their crop is sold off to the blue-chip houses, but a small portion does remain in-house for production—just 50,000 bottles, and a fraction of that makes up their prestige cuvée. For comparison, Moët et Chandon produces tens of millions per year.
Renaudin’s micro-produced prestige bottling, “L’Espiegle,” is what’s on offer today. This 2006 comes from Chardonnay vines in the Premier Cru village of Pierry, which lies at the entrance of the Côte des Blancs near Grand Crus Cramant and Chouilly. In the cellar, the gently pressed juice saw a slow, spontaneous fermentation in older French oak barrels followed by roughly 10 months of maturation. During this time, malolactic fermentation was avoided, but a steady lees-stirring regimen was employed to lend more textural richness. After being transferred into bottle, the wine then aged in the cellars of Renaudin for over 160 months before disgorgement in December of 2020 and a judicious six-gram dosage.
There are only a handful of respectable Champagne estates that age their prestige cuvées for this long and charge this little—today’s 2006 breaks down to $4 and change per year—and far fewer taste this good. “L’Espiegle” pours a brilliant yellow-gold in the glass with streaks of silver and neon green. The tiny, compact beads of carbonation race upward in a rapid spiral motion and burst onto the surface alongside a fine mousse. If you give the wine about 15-20 seconds to settle in an all-purpose stem or flared tulip and gently swirl it a couple of times, you’ll be greeted with vibrant, creamy, and savory aromas of red and yellow apple, Bosc pear, crushed oyster shell, pineapple core, marzipan, lees, lemon curd, hazelnuts, honeysuckle, and toasted brioche. The palate, like all of their “L’Espiegle” creations, is rich and ever-lively with pulverized minerals and supple, nutty layers. This is drinking in peak form right now and I expect your bottle will be drained faster than you’d like, so I strongly advise buying no less than three!
