Champagne Chartogne-Taillet "Sainte-Anne" Extra Brut NV

Champagne Chartogne-Taillet "Sainte-Anne" Extra Brut NV The village cuvée from the Selosse-trained grower who put a quiet corner of the Montagne de Reims back on the map — chalk, smoke and salt in one bottle. Grape Varietals & Region: A Chardonnay-led blend with Pinot Noir and a little Meunier (recent releases sit around 50/40/10, but the split moves with each base year). It comes from Merfy, in the Massif de Saint-Thierry — a lesser-known northern pocket of the Montagne de Reims, a short drive from Reims, where vines have been grown since monks planted them in the 7th century. Soils run through clay, sand, sandstone and chalk, and the estate has farmed organically since 2002. Taste Profile: White peach, crisp apple, pear, lemon peel and white flowers up front, then hazelnut, fresh bread and a wisp of smoke as it opens. Chalky, salty and long, with enough ripe fruit to stop Extra Brut from tasting austere. Great as an aperitif, and sharp enough to cut through anything fried or briny. Winemaking Process: Hand-harvested fruit from different Merfy parcels is vinified separately, mostly in wooden vessels of varying sizes, then blended with older reserve wine for a touch of oxidative complexity. The wine is not filtered, goes through second fermentation in bottle (traditional method), and is finished with a very low Extra Brut dosage — around 2.5 g/L in the most recent releases. Winemaker: Alexandre Chartogne returned to his family's estate in Merfy in 2006 after working under Anselme Selosse, and the Selosse influence shows in the tension between richness and cut. He's since pushed the farming further: sheep and chickens roam the vines, half the rows are left in cover crops, and half are ploughed by horse so the soil doesn't compact.