Pascal Doquet Champ d'Alouettes Grand Cru Blanc de Blancs

Here is the revelation of our latest tasting of the Domaine's wines: an incredibly lively, energetic Grand Cru blanc de blancs, despite the 18 years it spent in the Doquet family's cellars. Elegant, intense and prodigiously precise in its contours, it gives us a taste of fullness and eternity.

It must be said that this single-plot cuvée has a particularly privileged origin. We are in the heart of the famous Grand Cru of Mesnil-sur-Oger, in one of its finest terroirs, perfectly placed mid-slope. At Champ d'Alouettes, the Doquets farm a vineyard planted in 1980, covering around sixty ares. Set on those famous thin, light soils covering the Campanian chalk and its marine fossils, the vineyard enjoys a very favourable microclimate in a small east-facing valley sheltered from the prevailing winds. Affected by "court-noué", it has the particularity of producing a significant proportion of small, extremely concentrated millerandé berries. Here yields are naturally limited, giving juices intense in aromatic expression and mineral impregnation.

To preserve the grapes' strong aromatic identity and original acidity, Pascal chooses to block malolactic fermentation. With the first-press juice, he trusts fully in the fruit's natural balance. As for vinification: one-third in oak barrels (no new wood) and two-thirds in enamelled tanks.

This exceptional lot, bottled in spring 2005, spent 16 years on its lees before disgorgement! Yet it has lost none of its initial energy, quite the opposite, and today offers a particularly vibrant, even thrilling, interpretation of this fabulous terroir.

Opening with smoky notes evoking peat and struck stone, the bouquet unfolds in successive waves. Barley sugar and brown sugar, dried fruit, undergrowth, gingerbread, cinnamon, pepper, praline, candied lemon, baked apple, peach compote and pineapple: a true farandole of aromas bursts from the glass. The precision on the palate is exceptional: a fleshy, dynamic substance unfolds, supported by a very fine, compact bubble that fills the palate with a subtle mix of tension and softness. As for the salty, mouthwatering persistence, it is phenomenal.

A great gastronomic Champagne that should pair perfectly with a veal stew with candied lemon, crisp yet tender sweetbreads with citrus caramel, or roast turbot with wild mushrooms. Unless you prefer Chef Bernard Pacaud's langoustines in sesame puff pastry with curry sauce!