2007 Agrapart Blanc de Blancs Avizoise Extra Brut

From two adjacent, half-century old Avize vineyards with the kind of “soil that loves you” – as Pascal Agrapart puts it, borrowing an expression from the Jura deep clay that sticks to your boots – his 2007 Extra Brut Blanc de Blancs Avizoise undergoes its second fermentation under cork. It displays a delightfully pungent nose featuring sourdough yeasts, sprouted grain, and lemon zest. As it opens to the air, haunting gentian and violet perfume emerge. Suggestions of pineapple join lemon in bright mid-palate juiciness. The silken texture yet, underneath that, firm feel – as well as the sense of vivacity allied to slight austerity – all conform to what Agrapart sees as the “straight, vertical” character of vintage 2007. Hints of lightly toasted hazelnut and almond enrich the understated but long finish in which subtle liquid florality and illusive mineral nuances – however soft-spoken – take pride of place. Here is one of those instances where if you shake-off the CO2, the wine displays an even more transparent and intriguing personality. As Agrapart points out, these parcels lie a mere 800 meters distant from those that inform the corresponding “Mineral” bottling, but what a difference in personality the relevant difference in soil and exposure makes! I suspect that this will grow in interest over the next several years and be worth following for at least 6-8. Pascal and Fabrice Agrapart farm 24 acres morsellated into more than 60 parcels the length of the Cote des Blancs, overwhelmingly planted with selections massales (principally of the family’s own, generations-long devising) rather than clones. Viticulture is clearly a meticulous concern, and while this estate doesn’t subscribe to any labels, it has a lot in common – including absence of herbicides or pesticides; generally minimalist cellar protocol; manual- and in some instances horse-plowing – with soil-conscious growers of officially organic or biodynamic persuasion. “It’s in warm, dry vintages with low acidity that you most see the effect of working the soil and making the roots go deep,” opines Pascal Agrapart, adding “I recently had a wonderful experience with a 1976 that was still full of vivacity.” Vinification is majority in tank for the two least expensive bottlings, but otherwise in old demi-muids in which primary fermentation is spontaneous and generally leisurely, with malo-lactic conversion initiated via a vinous starter to insure steady completion. Agrapart’s 2012 vins clairs and 2011 reserves, incidentally – wine isn’t assembled and bottled here until the end of the summer – were delightful and fascinating when tasted from barrel this June. There was noteworthy clarity, vibrancy and complexity to every wine I tasted here in June and thereafter, so it would have broken my heart not to be able to report on the non-vintage wines, but to do so, I must confess I’m walking close to the line of the conventions I established for my reports, because neither disgorgement dates nor lots are actually indicated on the label or bottle here, but rather on the top of the cork, with the months assigned consecutive capital letters, followed by the last two digits of the year in which the wine was disgorged. This means you’ll either need to buy and remove the cage from the first bottle or get some cooperation from your merchant if you want to know when the wine was disgorged (and as at other addresses, this won’t always be a reliable indicator as to the base wines in question, because Agraparts disgorge their “7 Crus” and “Terroirs” bottlings monthly). Importers include Beaune Imports, Berkeley, CA; tel. (510) 559-1040; Polaner Selections, Mt. Kisco, NY; tel. (914) 244-0404; and Vanguard Wines LLC, Columbus, OH; tel. (614) 291-3493