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2020 Champagne Extra Brut Grand Cru “Jolivettes”
Champagne Nicolas Maillart
It may have bubbles, but approach this majestic single-vineyard Champagne as you would a great still wine. Pull out your finest glassware (not flutes or coupes!) to best appreciate the deep aromatics and striking color, somewhere between rosé and a glistening amber. After all, it consists of 100% Pinot Noir from Bouzy, a village renowned for its grandiose blancs de noirs. Equally suited to festive appetizers as it is to a multi-course dinner or a bin in your cellar, this is eye-opening Champagne from one of the region’s most exciting growers.
—Anthony Lynch
Wine Type: | sparkling |
Vintage: | 2020 |
Bottle Size: | 750mL |
Blend: | Pinot Noir |
Appellation: | Bouzy |
Country: | France |
Region: | Champagne |
Producer: | Nicolas Maillart |
Winemaker: | Nicolas Maillart |
Vineyard: | Planted in 1987, .6 ha |
Soil: | Limestone, Chalk |
Aging: | Aged for 10 months in 228L oak barrels |
Farming: | Haute Valeur Environnementale (certified) |
Alcohol: | 12.5% |
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About The Producer
Nicolas Maillart
Nicolas Maillart owns and farms vineyards in Écueil, Villers-Allerand, and Bouzy, all just south of Reims. These are among the world’s greatest terroirs for growing Champagne grapes, and they have been brilliantly matched chez Maillart to Chardonnay, Pinot Meunier, Pinot Noir, and Petit Meslier in order to extract the best qualities of each grape for both his blended multi-vintage Champagnes and his single-vineyard-vintage bottlings. All of his Champagnes are fermented and aged in wood, minimally sulfured, and bottled unfiltered with very little dosage.
Nicolas has made wine at his family estate in the village of Écueil since 2003. He controls, farms, and manages all of his vineyards himself, working all of his soils. His Champagnes are pure, elegant, terroir-transparent, stylish, and delicious! Tasting through his lineup of vins clairs is like tasting through a cellar of young wines in Burgundy, and he has figured out how to transform the magic he has in barrel into his resulting Champagnes that emerge years later.
About The Region
Champagne
True Champagne must not only sparkle, but also must come from grapes grown in the Champagne region of France and be made using méthode champenoise—a process that involves prolonged aging of the wine as well as a bottle fermentation used to add the sparkle to the finished product. Though wine has been made in this region since at least the 5th century, Champagne as we now know is a relatively new creation. It wasn’t until the 19th century that sparkling wine production took hold on a large scale in much part due to improvements in the strength of glass for bottles and the embrace of French nobility of the sparkling wines of the region.
Only three grape varieties may be used to make Champagne: Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and Pinot Meunier. The chalk-heavy soils not only provide complexity and texture to the finished wine, but also act as a natural humidifier thus keeping the vine’s roots warm during colder months of the year. There are grand cru and premier cru designated vineyard areas but unlike Burgundy, there are few lieu-dit vineyards (though in recent years there has been a greater interest in producing vineyard specific Champagnes).
Kermit’s first foray into the region came in 1981 when he began importing the wines of J. Lassalle and Paul Bara—two producers whose wines we still import. In the mid 2000s, Kermit began importing the wines of Veuve Fourny et Fils.
Of Champagne, Kermit says, “You might be surprised to learn that I don’t like a goût de terroir to dominate the taste of Champagnes. If it dominates, you lose finesse. I want some, obviously—but only enough to keep things interesting.”
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Kermit once said...

Kermit once said...
For the wines that I buy I insist that the winemaker leave them whole, intact. I go into the cellars now and select specific barrels or cuvées, and I request that they be bottled without stripping them with filters or other devices. This means that many of our wines will arrive with a smudge of sediment and will throw a more important deposit as time goes by, It also means the wine will taste better.