2006 Pascal Doquet Le Mont Aime Blanc de Blancs Premier Cru Brut

From chalk and silex soils, the golden-yellow colored 2006 Le Mont Aimé Premier Cru Coeur de Terroir has a very particular bouquet for the Côte des Blancs and needs a while to get rid of its rather reductive style (36% was fermented in small oak barrels). Concentrated citrus flavors evolve after a while in the glass. This could also be a ripe and flinty Chablis with bubbles. On the palate, this is a beautifully elegant, refined and rather crystalline Champagne, and its linear elegance is pretty unique. The finish is pure, salty and rather piquant but ripe. This is a fascinating wine that I perhaps slightly underrated in my review from two years ago (in Issue #225). This sample was disgorged in July 2017, about 2.5 years after the one I tasted in early 2016 for my previous review. The dosage is 3.5 grams per liter. The wine was bottled in April 2007, but the long lees aging adds a lot of elegance, finesse and charm. The finish is incredibly salty and refined yet also complex and persistently structured. Tasted April 2018.