Today’s wine only recently made its debut in the US market, but as we’ve come to expect from Champagne, Léguillette Romelot isn’t some fledging creation—it has, like so many of the artisan Champagne growers we’ve featured on SommSelect, been hiding in plain sight, waiting for the right opportunity to dazzle us.
And it’s impossible not to be dazzled when you see just how much wine you’re getting here at this modest price point: three-plus years of lees aging and a substantial amount of ‘reserve’ wine (48%) in the final blend give the “Prélude” Extra-Brut serious depth and texture. Driven by old-vine Pinot Meunier grown in the Marne Valley village of Charly, this cuvée is at once bone-dry and enthrallingly ‘vinous’ and rich, with lots of red fruit and warm spice notes. Much like another SommSelect house favorite—Champagne André Clouet—this is a style meant for food that epitomizes affordable luxury. Get some on your table soon: you’ll be very glad you did.
And if you’re a keen Champagne enthusiast, you’ll see a unique indication in this bottle’s fine print: RC, or récoltant coopérateur, describing a grower-producer that belongs to a cooperative but produces wine under its own label. Both the Léguillette and Romelot familes have viticultural roots in Charly going back to the 18th century, and in the 1960s both families helped form a small co-op in Charly. In 1968, André Léguillette and Marie-France Romelot married and created their own brand, while also remaining in the cooperative. Today, their son Laurent and his family run the domaine, which extends over 8 hectares of vineyards averaging an impressive 40 years of age. Although they still contribute fruit to the co-op, the majority of their production is vinified in their own facilities.
Charly-sur-Marne is at the western end of the Vallée de la Marne, one of Champagne’s key sub-regions and the one most planted to the Pinot Meunier variety. Especially at the western end of the valley, the higher percentage of clay to limestone chalk favors Meunier, which is also more adaptable to the cooler climate of the region. The grape accounts for 60% of total plantings in the Marne Valley and roughly the same (64%) in “Prélude,” and it contributes both red fruit notes and a noticeable silkiness to the texture.
Geek out a little further and this wine really raises some eyebrows: It is ‘based’ on the 2014 vintage but contains more than 40% reserve wine, culled from a solera (battery of aging barrels) containing wines from 2008-’13. In addition to the depth imparted by this substantial percentage of reserve wine, Prélude also spent more than three years aging on its lees before disgorgement. This is complex Champagne meant for the dinner table more so than the cocktail hour, though I certainly wouldn’t turn it away if someone offered it to me as an apéritif!
In the glass, the Prélude NV is a deep straw gold with light copper highlights at the rim, with fine, persistent effervescence and a perfumed nose of white cherry, red apple skin, lemon curd, toasted brioche, hazelnut, white mushroom, and crushed stones. Although it is designated an Extra-Brut, with a relatively low
dosage (sugar addition) of 5.5 grams per liter, it comes off dry but not austere; there’s nice richness and texture, owing to old-vine fruit rather than sugar. I’m going to bring out that word again—
vinous—to describe it; even when the sparkle dissipates it is immensely enjoyable, even more so. Serve it at 45-50 degrees in all-purpose white wine stems or even larger Burgundy glasses: the aromas are expressive and the flavors broad and deep, so no need to incarcerate it in a narrow flute. Although I wouldn’t hesitate to put this with a roast chicken or pork main course, something about its mix of fruit and savor gave me a hankering for bacon-wrapped scallops—not exactly
haute cuisine but very tasty nonetheless! Cheers!
