Nouveau Nez, 2021

Mandatory hand-harvest, spontaneous fermentation, 10 months minimum on tirage, disgorged, nothing added, the final wine must have less than 2 g of residual sugars, and a minimum of 2.5 bars of pressure. To make this cuvée, we are using specific plots in Montlouis. The grapes are hand-harvested, picked perfectly ripe (12 to 13% potential depending on the vintage), sorted in the vineyard and pressed whole-cluster. When only 15 g or so of sugar are left, the wine is bottled, and aged a minimum of 10 months before being disgorged. Damien is trying more and more to expand the tirage, as the quality of the wine is getting better every year in order to gain complexity. 2021 is a dense, juicy version of Nouveau-Nez. The nose is explosive on quince paste, marzipan, seringa, lemon-verbena, a mix of Chenin and autolytic notes. The palate is first broad and dense to become sleeker and saltier to finish with smoke and iodine. The bubbles are remarkably creamy and lingering. 100% Chenin.