Jérôme Prévost LA CLOSERIE JÉRÔME PRÉVOST Champagne La Closerie “&” Extra Brut NV LC21

Description

The Champagne Extra Brut “&” LC 21 by Jérôme Prévost LA CLOSERIE is the novelty of the house. It is a blend that combines 20% of Les Béguines with the balance deriving from other Gueux sites that share the same sandy soils. It is based on the 2019 vintage, with approximately 20% reserve wines from 2018. The label is easy to distinguish thanks to the large red ampersand. It features aromas of pear, red apple, walnuts, fresh bread and mandarin. In the mouth it is a layered and vinous Champagne, with a fleshy heart and a saline finish. Although it is made from purchased grapes, Prévost farms some of the sites and determines the harvest and sorting date. Jérôme Prévost and his Champagne winery La Closerie are part of a coalition of small producers producing intense vinous champagnes, transparent to the terroir. Rather than following the traditional Champagne model of blending grapes, vintages and vineyards to produce a “standardized” product, Jérôme and his fellow “Champagne Renegades” produce terroir-specific bottlings dedicated primarily to one grape and one vintage. Jérôme inherited a two-hectare plot known as Les Béguines from his grandmother, who grew up on the same road in the village of Gueux, in the Montagne de Reims, where the winery and family home are located. At Les Béguines, Pinot Meunier reigns supreme, but there are Pinot Noir, Pinot Grigio and Chardonnay plants scattered throughout the parcel, representing around 5% of the final blend. Furthermore, while a single vintage dominates, Jérôme tends to blend in reserve wines of 10-15%. Jérôme’s grandmother had previously rented the vineyards for others to grow, until 1987, when Jérôme took over and began selling the grapes directly to the négociants. In the mid-90s he began working for Jacques Selosse and in 1998, with the help of Anselme Selosse, he began producing small quantities of wine in the Selosse cellars in Avize. He continued to produce his wine there until 2001, when he moved production to Gueux. Today, a modern, minimalist house and winery sits on the edge of the vineyard. Jérôme was certainly influenced by some of Anselme Selosse’s unique techniques, including meticulous attention to detail in the vineyard, with extremely low yields (about half the legal limit!) and no chemical additives used in his farming. Like Anselme, Jérôme likes to play by his rules and can be a bit of a contrarian when it comes to some of his techniques. Les Beguines is located approximately 10 km west of Reims. It was planted at the end of the 1950s, fortunately before the era of “super clones”, therefore with original cuttings of mass selection. Jérôme harvests all the grapes by hand and ferments with indigenous yeasts using a mix of used and 600-litre demi-muid barriques. The champagnes are disgorged approximately 16 months after bottling, and finished without dosage and with very little sulfur so as to preserve the sanctity and purity of the underlying wine. This short period sur lattes is unique in Champagne, but Jérôme claims that the most interesting evolution of his wines occurs in the bottle in the months and years following disgorgement, as he points out, more like a normal still wine than a Champagne.