Champagne Pierre Moncuit, Champagne Brut Hugues De Coulmet Blanc de Blancs NV (750ml)

Champagne Pierre Moncuit is based in the superb Côtes des Blancs village of Le Mesnil-sur-Oger where Monsieur Moncuit began bottling estate-grown Champagnes back in the early 1950s. Since 1977, all things related to viticulture and vinification have been under the direction of Pierre's daughter, Nicole Moncuit, while her brother Yves runs the commercial side of the business. The Moncuit family can trace their origins as grape growers in Le Mesnil-sur-Oger to the last decades of the nineteenth century. It is in this Grand Cru commune that the family owns fifteen of its twenty hectares of vines. The other five hectares are located in the southern village of Sézanne.

The family vines in Le Mesnil-sur-Oger are among the oldest to be found in this Grand Cru village, as the family has not replanted any of their parcels in more than thirty years, and the vines are beginning to produce fruit that clearly translates the nuances of their respective terroirs. All Moncuit wines are produced from a single vintage, with no reserve wines blended into the non-vintage bottlings. As Nicole Moncuit likes to point out, this practice allows each wine to more precisely express its particular growing season and makes the evolution in the cellar more fascinating to follow as the years unfold. Additionally, all bottlings undergo a full malolactic fermentation in stainless steel tanks and are then aged 24-36 months prior to release.

As a Chardonnay-centric Champagne house, Moncuit produces four distinct Blanc de Blancs cuvées: the Hugues de Coulmet Blanc de Blancs Brut NV produced exclusively from holdings in the village of Sézanne, along with three wines from Le Mesnil-sur-Oger including the Moncuit Blanc de Blancs Grand Cru produced in both Brut NV and Extra Brut NV, and the vintage-dated Blanc de Blancs Grand Cru. In addition, there is a small amount of Brut Rosé made entirely of Grand Cru fruit: seventy-five percent Chardonnay from Le Mesnil-sur-Oger and twenty-five percent still Pinot Noir from the village of Ambonnay, one of the greatest Grand Cru Pinot communes in the region.

Champagne Pierre Moncuit is one of the great defenders of a style of Champagne that emphasizes the expression of terroir in the finished wines. For that reason, the wines from different villages are never blended (except in the case of the Brut Rosé). These are quintessential examples of Blanc de Blancs Champagne, with a combination of a racy, mineral-laden palate, superb expression of the underlying chalky soils in which they are grown, and generous, youthful fruit expressions that makes them ideal wines to drink right out of the blocks, while still retaining all of the structural integrity necessary to age beautifully for years to come. 

SOIL: Chalk and limestone
VITICULTURE: Grapes are hand harvested
VILIFICATION: Fermentation takes place in stainless steel using natural yeasts. 100% malolactic.
AGING: Three years sur lie.
PRODUCTION: 4,200 cases