Champagne La Closerie Grand Cru (Jérôme & Agnès Prévost) (Base 21, Disg. Sep 2023)

This new (unsurprisingly rare) bottling from Prévost debuted with the 2019 vintage. The 2021 base is the first to include fruit from Jérôme and Agnès’ two tiny plots of Grand Cru Le Mesnil, totalling 0.28 hectares. Purchased in spring 2021, these mass-selection vines were planted in the 1960s on hard Lutetian limestone (the stone used for the cathedrals of Reims and Paris). The négoce section of the blend is, again, Chardonnay from Le Mesnil (Côte des Blancs) and Pinot Noir from Puisieulx at the northern end of the Montagne de Reims just north of Rilly-la-Montagne and Verzenay. Both latter sites are farmed by a couple whom Jérôme refers to as “lovely, young and talented” growers, with a viticulture charter that emphasises cultivated soils, low yields and full ripeness (with the date of harvest determined in consultation with Prévost).