A slightly blurred colour of garnet red with a brownish tint at the rim of the glass...It looks like a precious rarity found at antiques shop. An intense fresh nose, showing aromas of cherries, prunes and raspberries and furtheron developing fragrances of marzipan, dried blossoms and undergrowth. In addition several mushrooms, a trifle of pepper and the scent of old books, similar to vanilla. That´s a lot, II must confess, but its an impressive wine.
On the palate: Mellow and well structured thanks to pleasant silky tannins. Fresh, straight, sensual, full-bodied, again with cherries, spices and chocolate.

A wine inviting you to spend a rainy evening, comfortably in an club chair, burying oneself in the adventures by SHERLOCK HOLMES.

I admit that I almost got trapped on this champagne. Someone served it out of my attention, while being entirely committed to the discussion with my neighbour at table. So I tasted it blind. After a few sips, the wine challenged me. Having well-recognized the style of PAUL LEBRUN, I was nevertheless unable to determine which of their wines was in my glass. First I took it for GRAND RESERVE, but the wine seemed thicker, softer, despite the many crispy bubbles exploding on my palate. But its perfume was more on red fruits and peppermint, while the GRAND RESERVE will rather go for yellow fruits and flowers, emphasizing its lightness and finesse.

To cut short my suspense, I went to get the bottle in the fridge and checked the label: it was the semi-dry wine of the house, dosed at not less than 37 g / L. If it were a still wine, it would rank among the sweet wines with this amount of residual sugar. In the wines from champagne, however (and in sparkling wines in general), sweetness is challenged by the naturally high acidity of the grapes and the crispy freshness of the bubbles. Therefore sparkling wines appear lighter and more fluid than still wines with the same amount of residual sugar. The semi-dry wine is positioned close to the CARTE D’OR, the “house wine” of Champagne PAUL LEBRUN. Both are made from the unique CHARDONNAY, grown on the Cote des Blancs and the Sézannais further south.

HERBIVORE SUPPORT : Try it as an aperitif, with some GREEN TOMATOE CHUTNEY on toasts. Throw in some FOIE GRAS and you will have a perfect CARNIVORE SUPPORT . You may as well go for a bit of old, dry PARMESAN cheese, he loves residual sugars as much as bubbles...

Here’s a vintage like one we don’t find often in Champagne. Characterized by cool weather conditions and slow bottle maturation, it took no less than five winters in the tranquility of our cellars, to fully develop its bouquet and balance. A light gold color, fast and regular bubbles that burst like sparks at the surface of the wine. The first discrete nose offers citrus, floral and minty aromas, and furtheron, to patiently evolve towards a beautiful complexity of grapefruit, candy, white peaches, pears and quince ... A fruit festival! The mouth is very straight, tight and mineral, with a creamy finish and persisting, verry well integrated bubbles, the flavours being rounded off by some notes of litchi, hazelnut and brioche.

Wheras the roundness and the aromas of dried fruit of the 2004 vintage suggested a Champagne more suitable for aperetif and dessert, the 2008 vintage stands up to lobster and crayfish with elegance and finesse. A Champagne for connoisseurs from an outstanding vintage ...

This 100% Malbec, perfectly aware of its power of seduction, plays its best cards with a certain kind of nonchalance: An explosive bouquet, a dense and creamy mouth feel, a (very) long final, fresh minerality.

Exuberant fragrances of raspberry and violets, but also marzipan and toasted hazelnuts rapidly capture the entire attention of our olfactory cells, while our taste buds turn somersaults between the velvety mouth feel and the impressive tannin structure. A wine that unleashes passion, expects affection and deserves some subtle cooking (grilled zander with bacon and capers in its youth, slowly cooked venison with sour cherry after a couple of years of cellaring).

I love Rhône wines from this vintage! Those who regularly read my blog will know.

I thus opened this bottle coming from Yves Gras vineyards in Vacqueyras with a certain thrill and expectations. The majority of Grenache, assisted by some Syrah, create an intense bouquet of prunes, ginger bread and chocolate, in a style as wild and intractable as the Dentelles de Montmirail, a stunning rock formation that overlooks the village. Very expressive on the palate, the wine shows a certain generosity, as well as lively acidity and doesn’t hide the typical fleshiness of Rhône wines.

As required by great vintages, the wine is young but harmonious, but it should receive some attention when serving now: A temperature of 16°C will be perfect and it will appreciate the space of a decanter to fully develop. The constitution of the wine promises an interesting evolution towards finesse and complexity after a couple of years of cellaring. In any cases it should be faced by savoury food: beef, lamb chops, Mediterranean spices, sun dried tomatoes, Parmesan cheese or Cantal entre-deux…

Oubviously there is a touch of „déjà vu“ when you taste the Cuvée Prestige of Champagne Paul Lebrun.

This Champagne has indeed some commonalities with its little brothers and sisters of the estate. Which is quite normal and even desirable, as I am convinced, that each winzer should leave (a slight) fingerprint on the style of his wines. It’s part of the habits of the Vignier-Lebrun family to ripen their Champagne for a long time on fine lees, before they take them out of the cellar. A single exception may be found in their cuvee “Carte d’Or”, which presents a younger, more lively and citric style.

The Dean of the estate, made from grapes of the finest terroirs of the Côte des Blancs, shows a warm golden colour and very fine, regular bubbles. A pleasant-smelling bouquet of ripe peaches and dry apricots, old Armagnac, crème brûlée and blond tobacco. A nose that invites to sit down and take your time…

The wine is dense and creamy on the palate, accompanied by fine, discreet bubbles. A well-structured Champagne one would like to eat and chew to bring it to full expression. I prefer to drink it “solo”, together with piece of old parmesan cheese and some good friends…

I can’t say that I prefer single varietal wines to cuvees, or vice-versa, but from time to time I appreciate listening to a grape varieties revealing their very own version of a particular terroir. Here we are talking about the 2008 vintage and a centenary Carignan vineyard, growing on a dry and stony terroir called “Les Aspres”, in the Minervois close to Carcassonne.

“In the Languedoc-Roussillon, the biggest wine growing region of France, the 2008 vintage, with its “Indian summer” is very promising,” François Boudou, director of the ICV, a regional wine institute, estimated some five years ago

With its fresh and rainy spring and its warm autumn full of sunshine, the Mediterranean wines of this vintage are considered as being “atypical” and elegant, carried by crispy acidity.

The bouquet of this Carignan is very intensive. First dominated by Hazelnut and raisins, it quickly gains complexity in the glass, showing smells of plums and gingerbread. Particularly smooth and mellow on the palate, it’s a very pleasant drink. Silky tannins underline the crispy acidity on the final, giving impressive length to the wine. It demands for typical winter dishes, for example patiently stewed meat with elegant spices like star anise, cinnamon and cloves.

Concerning Hubert Soreau, I can confirm that he is as meticulous as a goldsmith for the production of his champagne Clos l’Abbé. His Chardonnay grapes grow in three small lots of the historic Clos l’Abbé near Épernay (once the oldest walled or enclosed vineyards of Champagne, as old documents confirm that it was already planted with grape vines in the ninth century). Personally, I love Chardonnay. It always comes up with surprises, presenting unexpected tastes and fragrances to my palate. It can be subtle and discreet, thick and lazy, powerful or delicate, have aromas of butter, lemon, blossoms and vanille, be mineral or juicy… So maybe I’d better write in plural and say that « I like ChardonnayS ». Obviously there are also perfectly boring Chardonnay wines on the marked, as it’s not a MAGIC grape variety that automatically makes great wines. You have to treat it with a certain respect, so it gives us a wine well worthy of its name.

In Hubert’s vineyards and cellar this is indeed the case: « Chablis style » pruning, no herbicides, hand picked grapes, whole bunch pressing in vertical press, fermenting in oak barrels, bottle fermentation (prise de mousse) the traditional way with natural cork… And at least three years of bottle ripening before Hubert starts to think about bringing the wines back up from the cellar.

The last « tirage » of the Clos l’Abbé (the still, non sparkling wines of the last vintage are bottles for the second fermentation) took place in April. An excellent occasion to get an older bottle from the cellar and give it a taste!

It looks great in the glass: pale, shiny and golden colored, small bubbles regularly rising to the surface. Its almost ruminant… By the way, I poured it into a wine glass and not into a champagne flute. The latter is perfectly adapted to sparkling wines that want to emphasize the splendor of their bubbles. But its far to small and tight for wines with a complexe bouquet. Those wines deserve better, they need space!

The Clos l’Abbé gratefully fills the entire space I’ve offered to him with the smell of ripe peaches and pears, as well as with aromas of hazelnut and butter. After a little while the wine has opened up a little, adding white pepper and dried apricots to its bouquet. Despite the fact that my nose would love to hang on a little longer, my palate insists to taste and drink at last. The straight minerality of the wine surprises at first, but it rapidly melts away amongst the mellow and smooth mouthfeel. The fine bubbles are perfectly integrated, and delicate fragrances of almonds and blossoms enrich the aromatic final. 

Tasting this Champagne, its easy to understand the meaning of the French dictum that « a Champagne can accompany a whole banquet, from the amuse bouche to dessert ». Let’s think about it: I would serve the Clos l’Abbé without anything for an aperitif and prepare a rabbit terrine with coriander and pistachio for a starter. For the main course I could imagine fish filet with white pepper and vanilla, served with some creamy polenta, followed by some young parmesan cheese. Finish on a « Paris-Brest », a traditional French choux pastry with praline flavoured cream.

Convinced?