Parker om:
Champagne Extra Brut Avizoise Blanc de Blancs Grand Cru
-- Parker: From two adjacent, half-century old Avize vineyards with the kind of “soil that loves you” – as Pascal Agrapart puts it, borrowing an expression from the Jura deep clay that sticks to your boots – his 2007 Extra Brut Blanc de Blancs Avizoise undergoes its second fermentation under cork. It displays a delightfully pungent nose featuring sourdough yeasts, sprouted grain, and lemon zest. As it opens to the air, haunting gentian and violet perfume emerge. Suggestions of pineapple join lemon in bright mid-palate juiciness. The silken texture yet, underneath that, firm feel – as well as the sense of vivacity allied to slight austerity – all conform to what Agrapart sees as the “straight, vertical” character of vintage 2007. Hints of lightly toasted hazelnut and almond enrich the understated but long finish in which subtle liquid florality and illusive mineral nuances – however soft-spoken – take pride of place. Here is one of those instances where if you shake-off the CO2, the wine displays an even more transparent and intriguing personality. As Agrapart points out, these parcels lie a mere 800 meters distant from those that inform the corresponding “Mineral” bottling, but what a difference in personality the relevant difference in soil and exposure makes! I suspect that this will grow in interest over the next several years and be worth following for at least 6-8. 94/100
