Jerome Prevost La Closerie Les Beguines LC17 Champagne

Prévost’s 2.2-hectare vineyard, Les Béguines, is in Gueux, 10km west of Reims in the north of the region. Inherited from Jérôme’s grandmother, the site was planted in the 1960s with an old, slow-growing, rootstock that descends deeply. Les Béguines is close to 100% Pinot Meunier, although there is now a small amount of 10-year-old Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Blanc that has been planted next to the Pinot Meunier parcel. As these vines are still young, they are currently blended into the Les Béguines cuvée, representing roughly 6% of the blend. With time they may produce a stand-alone wine. The soil of Les Béguines is a layer cake of calcareous (Thanetian) sand over clay over calcareous sand. The vineyard management is of course organic, with the soils cultivated and yields kept at balanced levels.

To recover some of the volumes lost to the frost of 2017 (some 80%!) Prévost sourced fruit from a neighbour’s vineyard in Les Béguines. This makes 2017 the first vintage of this wine to be bottled under the Domaine’s new Négociant Manipulant (NM) status.

As always the wine was vinified without any additions in large-format, used barrels for ten months and bottled unfiltered. Prévost disgorged the wine after 17 months on lees and added approximately 2g/L dosage, so the wine is Extra Brut.

Other Reviews....
Prévost's NV Extra Brut Les Béguines LC 17 is showing even better than it did a year ago, wafting from the glass with a lovely bouquet of honeycomb, walnuts, confit lemon, spices and warm bread. Full-bodied, deep and concentrated, it's racy and incisive, with a deep and sapid core, bright acids and chalky structuring extract. While it is drinking very well young, it will evidently only go from strength to strength over the next decade.
95 Points
William Kelley - The Wine Advocate (Sept 2020)