LARMANDIER-BERNIER 'Vieille Vigne du Levant' Grand Cru Blanc de Blancs 2012

Wine Advocate 97/100

"The 2012 Extra-Brut Blanc de Blancs Grand Cru Vieille Vigne du Levant was tightly wound when I tasted it last year, but today it is really beginning to show all its cards. Delivering a complex bouquet of orange oil and pear mingled with notions of freshly baked bread, white flowers, marzipan and beeswax, it's full-bodied, layered and multidimensional, with terrific concentration, racy acids and chalky structure. Powerful and precise, it concludes with a long, mineral finish."

Pierre and Sophie Larmandier and their sons Arthur and now Georges too (joined September 2021) are determined to make wines as true as possible to their origins in their different vineyards. These are split into around fifty separate parcels spread across the Côte des Blancs in the grand cru villages of Cramant, Chouilly, Oger and Avize, and the premier cru of Vertus.

All but three of the parcels (representing 0.5 hectares) are farmed using non-officially certified biodynamic methods. Wines are made only from their own 15 hectares of vines, which are on average 33 years old. All of their Champagnes are the purest expressions of Chardonnay.

Working only with natural yeasts the influence of 'terroir' is all important to the style of his wines, so much so that he uses a minimum 'dosage' (if at all) so as not to mask the wines natural characteristics.

Pierre has recently changed the 'Tradition' cuvée, re-launching it as 'Latitude', and it is now also a Blanc de Blancs, with its origins in the vineyards south of Vertus. The old 'Blanc de Blancs cuvée, which is known henceforth as 'Longitude', comes exclusively from vineyards on the Cote de Blancs itself and is classified Premier Cru'.

The Pinot Noir is now reserved exclusively for Pierre's distinctive dark rosé and for the Vertus Rouge Coteaux Champenois.

Awarded the Robert Parker Green emblem in July 2021.