Thiénot Champagne Vintage 2015

Thiénot's Champagne Vintage is the expression of a single year, made in Reims from grapes sourced across Champagne. The blend includes 19% Grands Crus and 45% Premiers Crus, the highest-ranked villages of the Champagne vineyards. In a cool climate, between oceanic and continental influences, the vines sink their roots into a chalky subsoil that retains water and gives the wines their mineral tension, finesse and great ageing potential.

This 2015 vintage blends 60% Pinot Noir, 30% Chardonnay and 10% Meunier, all from the same harvest. The wines complete their full malolactic fermentation before bottling, carried out in May 2016, followed by second fermentation in bottle. The cuvée then rests for seven years in the cellars on rue des Moissons before receiving a brut dosage of 6 g/l. Jetting, practised by the house, limits the use of sulphites.

This wine reveals notes of ripe apple, ripe pear, quince, bergamot, candied lemon zest, linden blossom, toasted brioche and roasted hazelnut. The straw colour with soft golden glints heralds a very expressive nose, carried by orchard fruit. The palate, fresh and fleshy, combines richness and finesse; a creamy mousse accompanies the rise of citrus through to a superbly long finish.

The cradle of wine culture in Western Europe, France owes its first vines to the Greeks of Phocaea, who settled around Marseille some twenty-six centuries ago, before the Romans spread viticulture along the Rhône and the Garonne and as far as Champagne. In the Middle Ages, Cistercian and Benedictine monks cleared the slopes of Burgundy and patiently mapped out the climats, laying the foundations of the notion of terroir. The 19th century brought the glory of the classifications, then the disaster of phylloxera, which wiped out the vineyards before they were rebuilt on American rootstocks; the creation of the appellations d'origine contrôlée in the 1930s then set the rules that would inspire the whole world. Today, France vies every year with Italy and Spain for first place in world production by volume and remains the ultimate benchmark of the Old World, as much for its age-worthy wines as for its winemaking models. Vineyards cover almost the entire country, from the cool north of Champagne and Alsace to the Mediterranean shores of Languedoc and Provence, by way of the oceanic climates of Bordeaux, the Loire and the South-West, continental Burgundy, the steep slopes of the northern Rhône and the high-altitude valleys of Savoie and the Jura. This mosaic of soils – limestone, schist, gravel or rounded pebbles – explains the extraordinary diversity of styles. As for grape varieties, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot dominate Bordeaux and produce structured reds, Pinot Noir is the signature of Burgundian finesse, Syrah of the depth of the Rhône, while Grenache, Gamay, Cabernet Franc and Mourvèdre cover every register, from easy-drinking wines to wines for long ageing. Among the whites, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Chenin, Riesling and Viognier offer expressions ranging from lively and mineral to unctuous, all the way to great sweet wines. A land of benchmarks and constant discoveries, France remains the compass for wine lovers the world over.