Winemaker Notes
A finely balanced, fresh wine, with flavors of brioche, wild strawberries, and white pepper spice.
Blend: 80% Pinot Noir, 20% Chardonnay
Professional Ratings
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Wine & Spirits
This tastes like fresh-crushed apples, complete with their red skins, the flavors enriched by notes of yellow cherries and Marcona almonds. Its rich fruit sweetness builds on the wine’s gentle texture, supple and rounded, emphasizing freshness.
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Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
COMMENTARY: The Jean Vesselle Brut Reserve is bright, fruity, a charming. TASTING NOTES: This wine delivers aromas and flavors of ripe apples and lively citrus, and light chalkiness. Enjoy it with well-ripened cow's milk cheeses. (Tasted: May 9, 2022, San Francisco, CA)
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Jeb Dunnuck
Based on 80% Pinot Noir and the rest Chardonnay, the NV Champagne Reserve Brut opens to wild strawberry, peach, and orange blossom aromas, and the palate is medium-bodied but rounded. With 11 grams per liter dosage, its dosage makes this approachable, and it can be served as an aperitif or all the way through a meal.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Disgorged in March 2021, the latest rendition of Vesselle's NV Brut Réserve is showing nicely, offering up aromas of pear, honeycomb, freshly baked bread and warm biscuits. Medium to full-bodied, elegantly fleshy and precise, its nicely concentrated core of fruit is girdled by bright acids and complemented by a pinpoint mousse. Best after 2021.
A term typically reserved for Champagne and Sparkling Wines, non-vintage or simply “NV” on a label indicates a blend of finished wines from different vintages (years of harvest). To make non-vintage Champagne, typically the current year’s harvest (in other words, the current vintage) forms the base of the blend. Finished wines from previous years, called “vins de reserve” are blended in at approximately 10-50% of the total volume in order to achieve the flavor, complexity, body and acidity for the desired house style. A tiny proportion of Champagnes are made from a single vintage.
There are also some very large production still wines that may not claim one particular vintage. This would be at the discretion of the winemaker’s goals for character of the final wine.
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.’