2019 Jerome Prevost Extra Brut La Closerie Les Beguines

Jérome Prévost is one of the new breed of artisanal grower/producers making highly characterful single vineyard Champagne. Prévost’s vineyards are in Gueux, near Reims. He calls his estate La Closerie and his wines are some of the most in-demand Champagnes in France. Prévost’s Champagne come from his five acres of 40-year-old Meunier vines in Les Béguines vineyard. His two main offerings are both 100% Meunier from Les Béguines though he also has 20 nearby acres planted to much younger Meunier, Chardonnay, and Pinot Noir and Pinot Blanc vines. Unlike many of his peers in Champagne, he is not from a family of winemakers. Prévost inherited the Les Béguines parcel from his grandmother in 1987 and sold his grapes to a negociant until 1998, when he started making his own Champagne. The 2002 vintage was his debut. In general Prévost’s Champagnes are single variety, Meunier, and single vineyard, from Les Béguines, and made with little or no dosage. He farms organically and produces only 13,000 bottles a year. Like virtually all reviewers, Vinous’ Antonio Galloni has rated Prévost’s Champagnes in the 90s and noted that “Readers who haven’t tasted these artisan, handcrafted Champagnes owe it to themselves to do so.”

Champagne is a small, beautiful wine growing region northeast of Paris whose famous name is misused a million times a day. As wine enthusiasts and all French people are well aware, only sparkling wines produced in Champagne from grapes grown in Champagne can be called Champagne. Sparkling wines produced anywhere else, including in other parts of France, must be called something besides Champagne. Champagne producers are justifiably protective of their wines and the prestige associated with true Champagne. Though the region was growing grapes and making wines in ancient times, it began specializing in sparkling wine in the 17th century, when a Benedictine monk named Dom Pierre Pérignon formulated a set guidelines to improve the quality of the local sparkling wines. Despite legends to the contrary, Dom Pérignon did not “invent” sparkling wine, but his rules about aggressive pruning, small yields and multiple pressings of the grapes were widely adopted, and by the 18th and 19th centuries Champagne had become the wine of choice in fashionable courts and palaces throughout Europe. Today there are 75,000 acres of vineyards in Champagne growing Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Pinot Meunier. Champagne’s official appellation system classifies villages as Grand Cru or Premier Cru, though there are also many excellent Champagnes that simply carry the regional appellation. Along with well-known international Champagne houses there are numerous so-called “producer Champagnes,” meaning wines made by families who, usually for several or more generations, have worked their own vineyards and produced Champagne only from their own grapes.