Maison Lenique Grand Cru 2007 Tasting Notes

Champagne Grand Cru Blanc de blancs 2002

The very words ‘Grand Cru’ conjure up the idea of ultimate pleasures, conviviality and, perhaps, seduction.  Certainly, it is hard not to feel at ease as one cruises south from Épernay, through the serried ranks of Chardonnay vines which clothe the steep slopes of the Côte des Blancs, in a cosy ambience of space, order and nearness to nature.  The 8-metre-high champagne bottle overlooking the village of Cramant is a reminder of the Bacchanalian reasons for your visit, but press on, a little further south, to the famous Mesnil-Sur-Oger.  It is here you will find the four small – but sacred – plots from which come the Chardonnay grapes for our exclusive Grand Cru.

Our winemaker, Bertrand Robinet, was born here, into a family of generations of viticulteurs.  He began his working life in a local nursery and there isn’t much he doesn’t know about the area around Mesnil and its Chardonnay vines.  His native passion is evident as he tends his vines through the growing season and then nurtures each vintage as it matures in the cellars of Maison Lenique, the heart of his father-in-law’s family since before the French Revolution.  The combined expertise of many generations of viticulteurs and vignerons in every bottle – who could ask for more?

The grapes for our Vintage Grand Cru were picked in September 2002.  You may have forgotten the cool, damp spring and the dismal July and August but do you recall the heatwaves in June and September?  The former gave the vines a boost at the beginning of their growth phase and the latter meant glorious sunshine in the weeks before the harvest.  The result was lusciously ripe grapes with low acidity and an abundance of fruit in the still wine blend.  Add to this a delicate, persistent fizz from almost four years worth of secondary fermentation and the result is a Grand Cru champagne to savour, and one which will continue to develop in complexity in the bottle over the next five years.  

Gourmands will mate almost any dish with champagne.  The Champenois’ wide variety of cuisine reinforces this.  Strangely, perhaps, beef is not a staple of theirs but, perhaps, only because their spectrum of recipes includes pork, ham, chicken, guinea fowl, pheasant, sanglier (wild boar) in all their forms, as well as regal cheeses like Brie de Meaux.  River fish are plentiful hereabouts, too, and popular dishes include trout fried in butter with a ham and crème fraîche sauce or pike with bacon and gherkins.  Our Vintage Grand Cru will bless them all.