Blend: 60% Chardonnay / 40% Pinot Noir
Chartogne-Taillet is s producer I have wanted to explore since I in 2009 tasted the 2002 "Millésime" (Cuvée Mariage de Périne & Alexandre"). This year, @ Terre et vins de Champagne - I even had the privilege to meat young winemaker Alexandre Chartogne which made the impression of a very dedicated and humble person.
Like Jérôme Prévost and Olivier Collin - Alexandre Chartogne is also a former stagiaire of Anselme Selosse.
Fiacre is, as the label says, the Tête de Cuvée of the house and its one hell of a Champagne. I only have one little thing with it - but let's leave that for later.
The nose is breathtaking - one of those hypnotic "sniffer" Champagnes, where my wife needs a Vuvuzela horn to get in contact with me. The nose holds divine pure scents of; peaches, currant, cherries, croissants and roses. The style is extremely classy - complex - feminine, almost weightless presented and my personal allure barometer went off the charts here. Taste delivers a beautiful silky mousse - again very classy, with remarkable clarity and some mineral warmth and currant perfumes in the finale.
My only thing is the level of dosage. I know it's easy for me to sit here and speculate how 6, 3 or zero grams would make me even happier. The level of dosage might even be perfect and the reason behind this vivid floating style. The Champagne isn't even sweet in a sense of "bad dosage", where the sugar is stuck on the back palate. So what am I saying? To me it's just a wish of coming even closer and it seems like the dosage has the effect of layering a small silicone film on top of the flavours, preventing you to feel all of the raw material. This Champagne seem to have what it takes, to take the dosage even lower - but of course, I have no proof of this being the "right" decision and I could be dead wrong and on a mission to ruin the balance.
On the other hand - everything is not always about analyzing and dissecting a wine and search for errors. Overall conclusion is still a spectacular bottle of Champagne - which has lots of promising life left.
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6 comments:
Salut Thomas,
I just can´t cope with that sugar amount, thanx for the note.
BTW, I have been drinking out in open air for a long time.....dosen´t affect me that much ;-)
Hello, Ebbe.
I know…it’s probably not a Champagne which will be the perfect ”Voodoo” match.
However, as the note points out, this Champagne has this weightless appeal and the sweetness is not a sticky, heavy and an annoying component – it’s really delicate.
I know you have been drinking wine outside for some time now – I can see from all the terrace pictures you are uploading on FB.
Btw – why the hell are you drinking Chardonnay out of the Zalto Bordeaux and not the Burgundy glass?
Well Thomas,
I think that the Bordeaux Glass makes the wine more harmonic...it disappears in the Burgundy glass, but I have the same problem with Riedel Sommelier Burgundy, a glass I just don`t like, I have given it so many chances..but it lets me down every time :-)
Hi Ebbe,
With every glass you gain something and loose something else.
To me the Burgundy glass from Zalto is magnificent – perhaps one of the best wine glass out there. I use it all the time. The Bordeaux is also great, especially for showing freshness and herbal character in a wine. But for Chardonnay I find the Burgundy glass far superior. Sure the Bordeaux glass will show a fresher side of the wine – maybe even slimmer, but the floral components have more space to breathe in the Burgundy glass and to me that’s where the harmony lies.
However – we drink different Chardonnay – I don’t drink those crappy US whites (hehe ;-)…I know you can take it) – so of course impossible to compare.
I must say the mega Burgundy glass from Riedel is a glass I don’t use that much anymore. Most wines get’s lost in there. But there still are wines which fit’s with this glass – I just don’t taste these types of wines that often.
Best,
/Thomas
Hej Thomas
Hvor har du købt flasken ?
Med venlig hilsen Henrik Smidt
Hej Henrik,
Lige denne flaske købte jeg i Champagne, da der ikke var en Dansk importør.
Det er der dog nu: http://www.petillant.dk/
/T
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