Description
Jean Vesselle, Grand Cru Brut Millésime, “Prestige”
Looking back over our offers history, I was surprised to learn that we haven’t offered any Champagnes from the acclaimed Jean Vesselle estate. The only explanation I can think of is that maybe we weren’t able to get enough to cover our subscribership—Vesselle’s powerful, Pinot Noir-driven wines are extremely popular restaurant wines, highly sought-after for their compatibility with food and exceptional value-for-dollar.
But whatever the reason, we’re righting the wrong today in grand style, with one of Vesselle’s top-of-the-line bottlings, “Prestige.” Made only in select vintages and driven, like all Vesselle wines, by Pinot Noir grown in the Grand Cru village of Bouzy, this is the kind of luxurious, layered millésime Champagne that the most decadent meals are made of. It’s what I like to call a “gastronomic” Champagne, by which I mean it will shine brightest during dinner as opposed to before it. Aged for a whopping nine years on its lees before release, this is designed to stand toe-to-toe with vintage bottlings fetching twice as much. Such is the charm of ‘grower’ Champagne: Great value can be found at every rung of the ladder!
Anyone who loves great Champagne, and Pinot Noir, recognizes Bouzy as ground zero for the region’s most profound expressions of the variety, with a constellation of blue-chip producers that includes Pierre Paillard, Benoît Lahaye, and Paul Bara. The ‘Vesselle’ surname is attached to several different properties within Bouzy, which can get confusing, but Delphine and David Vesselle have distinguished themselves by reviving the saignée style of rosé, producing a distinctively dark sparkler that is about as close to ‘Burgundy with bubbles’ as one could hope to get. The family’s 15 hectares of vineyards are planted to 90% Pinot Noir and 10% Chardonnay, a ration which mirrors that of Bouzy as a whole. Across the entire Vesselle lineup, Pinot Noir is the star.
That said, “Prestige” Brut does contain 35% Chardonnay—it, too, sourced exclusively from Grand Cru sites in Bouzy. The Vesselles farm organically (non-certified) and hand-harvest all grapes; the wine is fermented in stainless steel before spending a whopping nine years aging in bottle on its lees. That patience is definitely a virtue: there are layers upon layers of complexity here.
In the glass, the 2007 “Prestige” is a lustrous straw-gold with coppery highlights and a fine, persistent ‘bead.’ The aromas are deep and unfolding: scents of honey-baked apples, lemon curd, apricots, brioche dough, wildflowers, baking spices and crushed rocks waft from the glass and carry over to the near full-bodied palate, which is full of tension and life due to its ripping acidity. It’s a Champagne with impact and serious length, and it’s really just getting started—I expect it will still be going strong 10 and even 20 years down the line, which is not to say you shouldn’t crack a bottle at your next special occasion. As I so often say, don’t drink this from flutes at cocktail hour: Pour it into large Bordeaux or Burgundy stems and let it comes up to around 50 degrees to really unleash its considerable complexities. It would be fantastic to pair it up with a richer seafood preparation as in the attached recipe and enjoy it as a ‘main course’ wine. To me, that’s where it belongs. Enjoy!
