“If you could transform Champagne into Burgundy, you would destroy it,” Rémi Krug of Krug Champagne, possibly the most prestigious house, told me back in 2003. Yet, Krug is also responsible for perhaps the most famous single-vineyard Champagne, Clos du Mesnil. Krug has also, since 1995, bottled the most expensive single-vineyard Champagne, Clos d’Ambonnay, a blanc de noirs — made only from black grapes — from a tiny walled plot in Ambonnay. PhotoBack in 2003, Mr. Krug called the single-vineyard Champagne “a contradiction wine.” If so, Champagne has been producing more and more contradictions. Lanson recently released its first single-vineyard Champagne, Clos Lanson, a 2006 blanc de blancs produced from a tiny enclosed vineyard on a hill in Reims.

Source: New York Times December 21, 2017 16:30 UTC