Brut Ay Vauzelle Terme 2004 Jacquesson

Professional reviews

Robert Parker (96)

Jacquesson’s 2,500 bottles of 2004 Extra Brut Ay Vauzelle Terme issue from a 1980 planting whose excellence they have been demonstrating by means of dedicated bottling since 1996, and its latest installment can only enhance the reputation of this rare and rightly expensive wine. Buddleia, wisteria, toasted grains, and a whiff of cocoa powder suggest advanced ripeness, and anticipate the inner-mouth floral profusion and subtly roasted flavors that follow on a polished and expansive palate suffused with superbly integrated, ultra-fine mousse. Nut extracts, dark berry distillates, toasted shrimp shell, chalk and wet stone well up from seemingly inexhaustible depths, while a luscious fruit contingent of juicy white peach, musk melon and quince gains strength as the bottle takes on air; and the floral notes never flag. By the third day, an almost praline-like nuttiness had emerged, along with a musky edge to the perfume and an enhancement of the sweetly saline, saliva-liberating savor of shrimp shell reduction. This novel-length study in a vineyard that would have rung bells with nobody outside Champagne (and scant few insiders) when Jacquesson first subjected it to separate bottling is likely to richly reward lucky owners for a dozen or more years.

BOW (8.75)