NV Jean Laurent Blanc de Noirs

Pouring a straw/copper hue, the NV Champagne Blanc De Noirs Brut is ripe and leesy on the nose, with forward notes of bread dough, yellow plum, and yellow flowers. The palate is frothy upfront and fills out with a broad, rounded feel and a ripe, pithy texture. It feels like it is at its peak for drinking now. Based on the 2016 vintage, it saw 6 grams per liter dosage and was disgorged in August of 2023.

The NV Champagne Blanc De Noirs Brut is slightly less expressive, with notes of apple peal and citrus in its elegant, balanced, pure profile. It has a dense mid-palate, plenty of heft and a rich, layered style. It lacks a touch of the layers found in the Brut Blanc de Blancs Réserve, but is beautiful, nonetheless. This cuvée is 100% Pinot Noir, from five vineyards, and spent 30 months on lees. It was finished with 8-10 grams per liter of dosage. This family estate is located south of Epernay, with vineyards primarily around the village of Celles-sur-Ource, and covers 35 acres planted mostly to Pinot Noir, with smaller amounts to Chardonnay, Pinot Blanc and Arbane. All three of the wines I was able to taste were outstanding.

Laurent’s NV Brut Blanc de Noirs Disg. 3/2013 offers a fascinatingly pungent nose of bruised apple skin, Latakia tobacco and buckwheat. Cidery manifestations of apple and cherry subtly reinforced by a hint of sweetness inform a juicy palate lent invigoration by hints of fresh red raspberry, including the crunching of its seeds. The sustained but simple finish lacks the punch or pungency promised on the nose or even the mid-palate’s stimulation, but this cuvee will certainly give plenty of pleasure over the coming year. Farming a sector of the Cotes des Bar that has been substantially responsible for the buzz (of both estate-bottling and press) accorded this region since the turn of the millennium, Jean Laurent farms 39 acres of which only nine are in Chardonnay, but he has chosen to showcase that cepage every bit as much as he does his Pinot Noir. The basic wines here spend at least three years sur latte and his prestige bottlings a decade, though I cannot claim – on this, my second tasting of Laurent cuvees – to have been convinced that the results justified the time or eventual price tags. Imported by Handpicked Selections, Warrenton, VA; tel. (540) 347-9400