2004 Jacquesson Ay Vauzelle Terme

(100% pinot noir; 1.5 g/l dosage and disgorged in February, 2013): Light yellow-gold. Intense, mineral-laced aromas of redcurrant, blood orange and buttered toast, with a sexy floral overtone that gains strength with air. Sappy, incisive and pure, offering vibrant red berry and citrus fruit flavors that gain depth with air. Shows outstanding clarity and power on the strikingly persistent finish, which leaves smoky mineral and leesy notes behind.

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. Possessed of vines in a who’s-who of disparate Champagne villages supplemented by purchased fruit from a few equally renowned communes in which they do not have holdings, Laurent and Jean-Herve Chiquet have – particularly over the past decade – led their already successful house along some unusual not to mention unusually successful paths. Virtually all of their wines are bone-dry (and labeled “Extra Brut”) yet come off as admirably balanced, following cask fermentation and aging with malo-lactic transformation, and long stays in bottle pre-disgorgement. In lieu of a conventional non-vintage blend, there is a wine sequentially numbered (allegedly to coincide with the totality of cuvees in Jacquesson history), and dominated by as well as designed to express the character of a single vintage. The estate’s upper-tier (and alas, for those of us on any kind of budget, that’s spelled with a capital “U”) now features a trio of highly limited, vineyard-designated bottlings whose recently disgorged instantiations are already about as complex as young Champagne can be. I did not visit with the Chiquet brothers this year, and shall look forward to doing so – and to reporting on a wider range of their wines – next year. Importer:Vintage 59 Imports, Washington, DC; tel. (202) 966-9218

The house's 2004 Brut Ay Vauzelle Terme (100% Pinot Noir) is gracious on the palate. Rich and creamy at first, then turning more delicate with time in the glass, the 2004 stands out for its impeccable balance. Small red berries, kirsch, rose petals and mint are all alive in the glass. The finish turns a bit fleeting, but not enough to detract from the wine's considerable appeal. My impression is that the Vauzelle Terme will be the first of these wines to mature, but that may just be splitting hairs, as the quality of all these wines is superb. Dosage was 1.5 grams per liter.