Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
Sixty-year-old vines on a single parcel have produced this tight, tense wine that is one of a series of single-vineyard wines. It has great richness to balance the acidity and fresh citrus and kiwi fruits flavors that are still present in this ever- young Champagne. Drink this bottling from 2021.
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Decanter
A textbook wine for the 2009 vintage. With pear, white peach, flowers and touches of honey, the bouquet is complex, but what is especially captivating is the elegant mineral scent. The mouthful is remarkably fleshy with an underlying chalky texture that gives a calcareous finish. Excellent potential for improving with age.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Disgorged in April 2019 without dosage, the 2009 Extra-Brut Premier Cru Dizy - Corne Bautray is showing well, opening in the glass with aromas of clear honey, dried white flowers, nougat, yellow apple, fresh peach and walnuts. Medium to full-bodied, it's elegantly vinous, with fine depth at the core, ripe but racy acids and chalky back-end grip. This is the most immediate and demonstrative of Jacquesson's lieux-dits in the 2009 vintage.
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Wine & Spirits
The Chiquet brothers farm one hectare (2.5 acres) at the top of the hill in Dizy, a southwest-facing slope with deep clay-rich topsoil over the chalk to help sustain the chardonnay vines, planted in 1960. Their 2009 has the floral character of fresh chamomile, with bold apple crispness even as the wine’s texture is elegant and lithe. It’s a sunny, fragrant expression of chardonnay with a clear terroir signature.
Representing the topmost expression of a Champagne house, a vintage Champagne is one made from the produce of a single, superior harvest year. Vintage Champagnes account for a mere 5% of total Champagne production and are produced about three times in a decade. Champagne is typically made as a blend of multiple years in order to preserve the house style; these will have non-vintage, or simply, NV on the label. The term, "vintage," as it applies to all wine, simply means a single harvest year.
Associated with luxury, celebration, and romance, the region, Champagne, is home to the world’s most prized sparkling wine. In order to bear the label, ‘Champagne’, a sparkling wine must originate from this northeastern region of France—called Champagne—and adhere to strict quality standards. Made up of the three towns Reims, Épernay, and Aÿ, it was here that the traditional method of sparkling wine production was both invented and perfected, birthing a winemaking technique as well as a flavor profile that is now emulated worldwide.
Well-drained, limestone and chalky soil defines much of the region, which lend a mineral component to its wines. Champagne’s cold, continental climate promotes ample acidity in its grapes but weather differences from year to year can create significant variation between vintages. While vintage Champagnes are produced in exceptional years, non-vintage cuvées are produced annually from a blend of several years in order to produce Champagnes that maintain a consistent house style.
With nearly negligible exceptions, . These can be blended together or bottled as individual varietal Champagnes, depending on the final style of wine desired. Chardonnay, the only white variety, contributes freshness, elegance, lively acidity and notes of citrus, orchard fruit and white flowers. Pinot Noir and its relative Pinot Meunier, provide the backbone to many blends, adding structure, body and supple red fruit flavors. Wines with a large proportion of Pinot Meunier will be ready to drink earlier, while Pinot Noir contributes to longevity. Whether it is white or rosé, most Champagne is made from a blend of red and white grapes—and uniquely, rosé is often produce by blending together red and white wine. A Champagne made exclusively from Chardonnay will be labeled as ‘blanc de blancs,’ while ones comprised of only red grapes are called ‘blanc de noirs.’