2016 Jérôme Prévost La Closerie Fac Simile Extra Brut Rose Champagne
Champagne from Champagne, France
Vintage: 2016
Volume:750ml
🌿Sustainable Wine🌿
🌒Byodynamic Wine🌒
Jérôme Prévost doesn’t make vintage labelled Champagnes but his wines are always of the one vintage and he puts a code on the bottle to indicate the year of harvest. This “LC” number (Lot Consignee), printed on the base of the label, reveals the vintage.
Disgorged October 2020. Extra Brut. This rare rosé Champagne was made for the first time from the 2007 vintage. It is effectively the wine above with some 13% (or one barrel) of a superb Pinot Meunier red wine—a delicious wine in its own right—that Prévost now seeks to make every year, when possible, from his own fruit. Prévost’s first intention had been to make a red wine in order to better understand his terroir. He has come to love producing his red and we have the distinct impression that he wishes he could make more. However, the fruit comes only from a small parcel of Les Béguines that is prone to court-noué (aka fanleaf virus). This virus stunts vigour and gives tiny yields of concentrated bunches and berries that ripen quickly. We are nonetheless now seeing more regular releases of his rosé—basically every year, albeit in tiny quantities.
The dosage this year was zero (non-dosé). The 2018 is a rich and powerful example; insanely perfumed with all kinds of red berries, rosewater, fresh peach and anise on both the nose and palate, and then a deep, finely structured personality in the mouth. As always, it’s a wine of great detail and precision with a driven, chalky freshness and a long, perfumed close—with some genuine tannins. It’s as close to being a ‘light red’ as a rosé Champagne might get, yet with the typical wow-factor of Prévost.