100% Chardonnay from a single 0.8-ha vineyard planted at the top of Oger, close to the border of Le Mesnil-sur-Oger. Their only cuvée vinified with any oak. Fermented in 55 oak barrels – each year they include five new barrels (ie 10% are new) and the rest range between one and eight years old. Disgorged February 2023. Dosage 5 g/l.
A startling contrast to their other wines. The nose is spice and nuts, cloves, allspice and aniseed. The wine is darkly savoury, almost growling. Rye-seed bread, toasted chia. Strikingly unusual with a long, long, brass-gong tang. Broad and powerful but precise and chiselled. Pickled lemon and pickled ginger. Complex, bold, and so gastronomic! It feels like I’m crunching on toasted seeds and chewing lemons. Just wonderful.
Robert Parker (95)
Disgorged with a dosage of five grams per liter in April 2023, the 2015 Grand Cru Blanc de Blancs Les Belles Voyes comes from the estate’s oldest vines in the village of Oger. It delivers a smoky, deep bouquet with aromas of flowers, lemon oil, ripe orchard fruit and pastry combined with a slightly reductive character. Mineral and vinous, the Champagne on the palate is medium to full-bodied with a mouthwatering, phenolic and chalk-driven finish. It promises graceful aging over the forthcoming five to eight years.
Vinous (94)
The 2015 Extra Brut Les Belles Voyes Grand Cru is a blanc de blancs picked in Oger and vinified in oak. This accounts for the immediate creaminess on the nose which comes with an overtone of soy and white miso. The golden wine is brisk and has lively bubbles and shows proper tension, an achievement in 2015. There is a lovely chalky backdrop and immense, bright freshness and no overt oak flavor. The lip-smacking lemony finish is lasting, so clean and super-chalky - just what you want from a blanc de blancs. Dosage is 5gr/L. Disgorged: February, 2023. - Anne Krebiehl MW
