2006 Jêrôme Prévost, La Closerie "Les Béguines"

100% Pinot Meunier

48 year old vines

Dosage: 0 g/l

So it’s finally Friday – weekend - and I am home alone.

Plan A is bulletproof – Champagne night; CHECK - bringing home some Antipasti, Culatello ham and Pecorino Cheese from Cibi e Vini; CHECK. Rented a Sci-Fi Movie; CHECK. Nursing the kids and filling them with food, so I am confident they will be sleeping no later than eight o clock….ahhhhhrr…not really, or call it wishful thinking.

Around 21:45, I was ready to sit down and relax. I guess that's not exactly what you call a perfect plan - bummer!!!!

Anyway….

I picked the highly sophisticated Pinot Meunier from Jêrôme Prévost. Now, when I first tasted this 2006 Vintage about a year ago it felt horrible young, and I knew I took a chance by trying it again now. However in Nov-09, it was in the 29 Champagnes lineup, where the bottle in hand was rather forward – and this needed investigation.

Still tight, yes - but not completely shy. To some extend, that was actually a sign of relief, as I would have been more concerned if the wine had evolved as fast as the bottle from Nov-09. It still has a brilliant and very different way of expressing the Pinot Meunier grape to my knowledge. But during the last two years I changed my view towards Pinot Meunier, which I for some reason had categorized as being clumsy and baroque, but also the grape which Krug used a lot of, even if it’s a bit hush-hush.

Prévost makes a really sophisticated version, where you get divine notes of apple and pear, but the package is wrapped in dark pitched spices of black cherries, smoke, mint and currant perfumes. Prévost is a biodynamic producer and the trademark of sleek purity and baby banana notes is certainly there. On the palate the spices are even more pronounced, but they are toned a fraction down when you drink it with food. This is important and food is the best way for it to shine – also because something happens to the overall balance on nose vs palate . Its strong structure and powerful concentration also obtains better balance with food.

I simply had to rest the last third of the bottle for day two otherwise I would have collapsed ;-). On day 2 it was completely shielded – almost nothing came out. Sometimes I rest the last glass for half an hour – letting the mousse die down, the temperature rise, simply to have some sort of feeling what’s “hiding”. But sometimes I can also have a better sense of acidity and maybe I am even lucky enough to get some signs of future potential. This is not a formula, which I can prove works and in some cases, zip happens. But my my…I tell you something happened here. Notes of melted butter, citrus, vanilla, honey and marzipan oozed from the glass with lots of freshness even at 17-18 degrees.

So what am I saying here?

I saying that something is hiding here – something good will become even greater with cellaring. Think I will return in 2 years time.

Glass: Spiegelau Adina red wine (no glass test this time)