Pierre Mignon, Brut Vintage Prestige, Champagne, 2015

From the fantastic 2015 vintage, this wine is a very special offering from Pierre Mignon as it has a far higher proportion of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir than the other cuvées that they make.

This results in a Champagne with wonderful finesse and aromatic complexity. The nose is delightfully expressive with notes of white stone-fruits, apricots, peach with mirabelle plums, dried fruit rind and toasted almonds. The mousse is long-lasting, persistent and delicate, which really shows the quality of production. The flavours on the palate, too are really special, with buttered brioche and developing fruit flavours really highlighting the quality that you get.

For an absolute snip.

Located in the Marne valley, the Mignon family have farmed various parcels of vines in the Côtes des Blancs, Marne and Épernay for generations, now covering 14 hectares. The house style is one of freshness and vitality and the vineyards facilitate this with a brilliant mix of 60% Pinot Meunier, 10% Pinot Noir and 30% Chardonnay. The different regions proffer differing soil types, which allows the wine making teams the opportunity to create wonderful cuvées that benefit from having the right grape varieties in the right places, each benefitting from varied micro-climates as well. It's a very clever and dynamic approach that really yields excellent quality. 

They use only their own grapes, making it a Domaine in any other part of France, but keep the door open in case of bad or challenging harvests. In fact, this is a Premier Cru Champagne which means that the grapes only come from vineyards designated as Premier Cru, which should be reason for mass celebration, surely? Well, yes and no; the Classification on vineyards in Champagne really hasn't been a qualitative delineation as it is in, say, Burgundy, because the climate is just so much harder to work with; plus, for a majority of non-vintage cuvées, it is the producer who often has a larger input into the quality outcome than the nuance of vineyard origin. 

The blend for this cuvée is 55% Meunier, with 35% Pinot Noir and 10% Chardonnay; the blended wines are aged for a minimum of 36 months. And of course, all the wine is made from grapes harvested in the 2015 vintage.