Devoted students of Champagne know that the village of Rilly-la-Montagne, in the famed Montagne de Reims sub-zone of Champagne, is home to Vilmart, one of the greatest of the récoltants-manipulants (grower-producers). Well, there’s another great name to know in Rilly, and it is François Lecompte.
This vintage bottling is the second one we’ve offered from Lecompte, and as vintage-dated, long-aged Champagnes go, it’s hard to think of any that offer more bang for the buck. Sourced from Lecompte’s lovingly tended Premier Cru vines, all concentrated in and around Rilly, and aged on its lees for seven-plus years before release, Lecompte’s millésime (vintage) is a stunning achievement at any price (but especially at this one). I’ve seen this wine recommended as an apéritif (even on Lecompte’s website), but that is not the way I’d play it: As our subscribers know, we love ‘vinous’ Champagnes that can stand on a dinner table with main-course dishes, and this one’s got more than enough depth, tension, and yes, ‘vinosity’ to do that. It is an impressive wine and further evidence (as if any were needed) that great Champagne is not the exclusive province of the wealthy. At just above $40, the price-to-quality is incredible, making this is a candidate to purchase by the case and drink all year long.
As I’ve noted before, ‘grower’ Champagnes are catnip to sommeliers—they’re the Davids to the Goliaths that are the grandes marques, or “great houses,” whose production (and marketing budgets) completely dwarf theirs. There are more than 15,000 grape growers in the Champagne region, a majority of whom sell their grapes either to local cooperatives or to one of the 40 or so larger “houses,” who represent more than two-thirds of all Champagne produced. In pitting their little-guy grower Champagnes against the big boys, many of our importer/distributor friends (half jokingly) frame it in good-versus-evil, big-equals-bad terms, which isn’t our objective here: there’s plenty of fantastic Champagne made by the grandes marques, there just also happens to be a steady stream of “new” (to us, anyway) grower-producers coming to our shores with a compelling story to tell.
In the case of François Lecompte, that story includes a focus on exceptionally long aging in the cellar before the wines are released into the market. The estate’s signature wine is this vintage-dated Brut, which spends 7-8 years aging in Lecompte’s chalky caves before it is released into the market. The result is the kind of brioche-y, textured, creamy Champagne you’d expect from such an extended period of aging on its lees (the yeast sediment left in the bottle after the wine’s secondary fermentation). The grape mix is 40% Chardonnay and 30% each Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier, all grown on north-facing sites on the Montagne de Reims.
The 2009 vintage from Lecompte is a slightly “bigger” wine than the ‘08 we offered last year, but bigger more in terms of impact than in weight. In the glass it’s a deep, reflective yellow-gold with a slight burnished quality that betrays its bottle age, and the aromatics show both primary and secondary notes battling for supremacy: yellow apple, preserved pineapple, white cherry, dried lemon, toasted hazelnut, dried white flowers, butter, bread dough, ginger, and lots of crushed stone minerality. The key word with this wine is ‘tension’—there are aged creamy flavors on the palate which are brightened with perfect freshness on the finish. There’s still plenty of great drinking ahead of this 2009, and I wouldn’t hesitate to lay it down for 10+ years more, as it will only continue to add to its already muscular frame. That said, open a bottle of this now and pour it in large Burgundy stems (as always, I’m not a flute guy). Let the temperature come up to around 50 degrees and let the carbonation dissipate a bit. Taste it and tell me if that profound minerality doesn’t have you thinking of a dry-aged ribeye, cooked rare. Just as we tout the pleasures of Chablis with beef tartare from time to time, I wouldn’t hesitate to pair this with steak, incongruous as it may sound. Attached is a recipe for a twangy, mustard-y Diane sauce that’ll lend further fireworks to the proceedings. Trust me, it’ll work. Enjoy!
