In our Sale: Champagne and sparkling wine

This wine is a bin-end, discounted by 20%.
One of the first and the best of the biodynamic producers in Champagne, Fleury are based in the southern Aube region and are especially proud of this wonderfully refreshing and highly unusual 100% Pinot Blanc cuvée. Low dosage, low yields and highly individual, this is a hymn to purity and complexity. Notes of white flowers and ‘agrume’ cede gently to something little more exotic, broad and gently creamy, a fascination and eloquent testament to non-interventionist winemaking.   
Simon Field MW, Wine Buyer

Gosset is the oldest known producer of wine in Champagne, its origins going back to 1584. Situated in the tiny Grand Cru village of Aÿ, 5km from Epernay, Gosset has some rather famous neighbours, including Bollinger. Production, however, is much below that of the larger houses, at around 1.3 million bottles, where as Moët & Chandon are nearing 30 million. With this small production, Gosset concentrates on the quality of its wines rather than the quantity.

I used to find the style of Gosset’s Rosé a little ponderous, sometimes almost oxidised. How all that has changed; the wine is now wonderfully clean, with flavours of rosehip, redcurrant and peach, wonderful aromatics and impeccable length. The archetype of great rosé Champagne.

Gosset are near neighbours to Bollinger in the Grand Cru Champagne village of Ay. Stylistically, one associates their wines with power, informed as they are by oak fermentation and a large proportion of Pinot Noir in the blends. The news of a release of a Blanc de Blancs was something of a surprise (even though there is already a Celebris BDB), a surprise compounded by the extraordinary elegance and freshness of the wine.

On closer inspection, this should perhaps have been expected, all the more so because the majority of the fruit is sourced from the great Grand Cru villages of the Côtes de Blancs: Avize, Chouilly, Cramant and Le Mesnil sur Oger. The wine has an attractive nose of spring flowers and Mirabelle plums, then a harmonious mid-palate, with gentle honey and hints of quince and apricot evidenced.

The silky notes are juxtaposed with distinct chalky acidity on the finish, the hallmark of Mesnil fruit, here beautifully married within the ensemble.