Description
Champagne Jean Vesselle, Grand Cru “Brut Prestige”
Just like gold dust, today’s offer is scarce, highly valuable, and one of a kind. A full decade passed before Champagne Jean Vesselle even considered disgorging and unveiling their 2011 Grand Cru “Prestige” to the unsuspecting public. To be entirely honest, even I didn’t expect to see this incredible bottling: Few producers “declared” a vintage in ’11, and only a handful of those emerged with liquid profundity. Jean Veselle is one such producer who toiled to craft an epic, hard-fought Champagne that’s now 10.5 years in the making.
Many aspersions have been cast on the 2011 vintage but with this jaw-dropping bottle, Vesselle reinforces the old idiom “never judge a book by its cover.” In fact, this is the equivalent of a novel so engrossing, that it simply demands to be absorbed in a single sitting. Driven by Grand Cru Pinot Noir from legendary Bouzy, this luxurious, infinitely layered Vintage Champagne is fit for the decadent meal of a king. In other words, this is no apéritif, but a powerful gastronomic Champagne that shines brightest during a special dinner as opposed to before it. This Grand Cru rarity may already be a decade old, but I assure you it’ll easily keep for another. No more than six bottles per person.
Anyone who loves great Champagne, and Pinot Noir, recognizes Bouzy as ground zero for the region’s most profound expressions of the variety: the village’s star-bright constellation of producers includes Pierre Paillard, Benoît Lahaye, Camille Savès, André Clouet, Paul Bara, and of course, Jean Vesselle. The Vesselle surname is attached to several different properties within Bouzy, which can get confusing, but Delphine and David Vesselle have distinguished themselves by producing some of the most distinct bottlings of all. The family’s 15 hectares of vineyards are planted to 90% Pinot Noir and 10% Chardonnay, a ratio that mirrors Bouzy as a whole. Across the entire Vesselle lineup, Pinot Noir is the luminous star.
That said, today’s 2011 “Prestige” does contain 30% Chardonnay, which is also sourced from their Grand Cru holdings in Bouzy. The Vesselles have a certification in sustainable farming and, as is law in Champagne, their grapes are harvested by hand. In the cellar, the juice ferments spontaneously in stainless steel tanks. This specific batch was transferred into bottle in the Spring of 2012, where it then matured without being disturbed for an entire DECADE. Disgorgement with a four-gram dosage finally occurred in March of this year.
The patience employed by Champagne Jean Vesselle is definitely a virtue: there are layers upon layers of complexity in their 2011 “Prestige.” In the glass, it pours a lustrous straw-gold with coppery highlights and ultra-fine, indefatigable beads of carbonation. The aromas are deep and unfolding: ripe apricot, honey-baked apples, Meyer lemon curd, brioche, roasted Mirabelle plum, baking spices, blanched almonds, fresh-picked morels, crushed rock, forest floor. As usual, it’s a Grand Cru Champagne with substantial body, impact, and length—and it’s just getting started. I expect it will still be going strong in 5-10 years. As I so often say, don’t drink this from flutes at cocktail hour. Instead, pour it into all-purpose stems and let the temperature come up to ~50 degrees to really unleash its considerable complexities.
