2017 Champagne Christophe Baron Champagne Les Alouettes Charly-sur-Marne***
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Tasting notes
The 2017 Champagne Les Alouettes is beautiful, and richer, mouth-filling style that should age gracefully. Giving up lots of toasty, nuttiness aromatics, it has a core of green apple fruit, plenty of mid-palate density, bright, almost racy acidity, and a great finish. Christophe Baron is the proprietor of Cayuse as well as Champagne Christophe Baron, so I was presented the opportunity to taste these Champagnes along with the wines from Cayuse. My colleague, Audrey Frick, will be covering these in the future as part of her comprehensive Champagne reports.
Critic scores
Jeb Dunnuck
Antonio Galloni, Vinous
More reviews and scores
The 2017 Brut Nature Les Alouettes is excellent, bursting with aromas of golden orchard fruit, warm spices, honeycomb, plums and toasted bread. Full-bodied, fleshy and vinous, it's rich and sapid, with a layered core of fruit, a pretty pinpoint mousse and a long, saline finish. Seamless and complete, this bottling is particularly strong this year.
The 2017 Brut Nature Les Alouettes (Magnum) is the most potent and tightly wound of these three Champagnes from Christophe Baron. It offers up a beguiling mix of graphite, orange confit, dried flowers, earthiness, chamomile and spice, all in a dense, inward style that demands cellaring. The Alouttes shows the more earthy, savory side of Meunier. Disgorged: May, 2021.