Description
Champagne Jean Vesselle, “B3” Grand Cru
Only the savviest Champagne minds can look at today’s bottle and understand its rarity before reading the offer. For everyone else: Pinot Noir is the time-hallowed king of Grand Cru Bouzy, so getting your hands on a bottle of 100% Chardonnay is an extremely tall order. Jean Vesselle produced 140 cases of this for the entire world, not because they wanted to make a limited cuvée, but because they had to—simply because Grand Cru Chardonnay vines are just that hard to come by here.
Their Grand Cru sites in Bouzy are farmed with the utmost attention to detail and the family toils tirelessly in the vineyard to adhere to organic practices. For tonight’s 2014 “B3” (Blanc de Blancs de Bouzy), their ~1 hectare of Chardonnay was harvested by hand and the grapes fermented on natural, airborne yeasts in used French oak barrels over many months. The resulting wine was then transferred into bottle, where it aged in their subterranean chalk cellars for nearly six years. It was disgorged in April of 2021 without any dosage, making it a “brut nature.” However, roughly two grams of natural residual sugar remains. Only 1700 bottles were produced.
Vesselle’s 2014 “B3” is leaning toward the bold/muscular side of the Blanc de Blancs spectrum, so I recommend pouring into larger stems and serving a touch warmer at 50-55 degrees. It slowly rolls out delicate aromas of sliced pear, bruised yellow apple, crushed white rock, salt-preserved lemon, dried white flowers, honeysuckle, and oyster shell that is followed by a faint nuttiness. For me, the most phenomenal aspect of this cuvée is that it expertly avoids the pitfall of many Brut Natures—that is, a vertical, one-dimensional palate that hits like a harsh laser beam. This Champagne is all about subtle power, sublime breadth, and chiseled minerality that delivers a wonderfully supple and expansive mouthfeel. It can be enjoyed now and over the next five years with ease.
