Disgorged November 2022. After the Brut Nature, this stunning Champagne is Aurélien Laherte’s second Blanc de Blancs bottling. Les Grandes Crayères showcases Laherte’s two most chalky, mineral soils in Coteaux Sud d’Épernay (crayères means chalk). These parcels of 40-plus-year-old mass-selection vines are situated on a west-facing hillside composed of Campanian chalk under 20cm of topsoil.
The base wine was fermented with indigenous yeasts in old barrels (aged three to 10 years) and didn’t go through malolactic conversion, emphasising the wine’s chiselled qualities. It then spent 30 months on lees in bottle and rested a further nine months after disgorgement before release. The dosage was less than 4 g/L, and it was disgorged by hand.