NV Nicolas Maillart Platine Extra Brut

A rich copper/golden color, the NV Champagne Premier Cru Platine Extra Brut is pleasing and fresh on the nose, leading with notes of toasted bread, peach, floral perfume, and almond. It’s composed of 58% Pinot Noir, 31% Chardonnay and the rest Meunier, from the villages of Bouzy, Villers Allerand, and Ecueil, and was raised in barrel without going through malolactic fermentation. Medium to full-bodied and fully dry, it has a pleasing light spice on the palate with a chalky texture, and as it opens, it leans into its deeper red-fruited profile on the palate, with a rather long finish. It’s quite impressive and is a lovely wine once it opens, so give it some air if opening at this early stage and drink over the next 6- 8 years. It has the addition of 2.5 grams per liter dosage and was disgorged in January of 2024.

Certified sustainable (HVE), organic farming. Blend of fruit from three villages: Allerand (premier cru), Écueil (premier cru) and Bouzy (grand cru). 54% Pinot Noir, 26% Chardonnay, 20% Meunier. Blend of 2018, 2016, 2015, 2014. Barrel fermentation, aged on lees. No filtration. Disgorged September 2022. Dosage 1 g/l. Toffee cream. Triangular acidity so that the wine starts broad and rich but with intent, linear focus from start to aciculate finish, despite the oak giving the wine richness and roundness and spice at the start and the heart. Toffee apple and nectarine. Stone fruit. Stone finish. How could you not love a wine that tastes like this? (TC)

78% Pinot Noir, 16% Chardonnay, 6% Pinot Meunier. Premiers crus Villers-Allerand and Écueil, grand cru Bouzy. 30-year-old vines farmed organically and biodynamically. Slow fermentation in barrels and tanks with long ageing on the lees. Dosage 6 g/l. Pan-warmed cashews. Chunky nuttiness splashed with crystalline citric acidity – really quite a contrast within the wine itself; a yin-yang. Rich with a generous sweep of peachy, nectarine fruit that comes speckled with orchard wild herbs and wild flowers, although the ultimate focus of this wine is a mineral line that runs start to finish. Great intensity. (TC)