La Carrelle 2022
50% Pinot Noir · 50% Pinot MeunierSparkling1 g/L · Extra-BrutHVENatural
The one parcel outside Damery: 1976 Pinot Noir and Meunier on clay-silt over fossil shells in Binson-et-Orquigny. Forty months on cork.
Fermented in oak with indigenous yeasts, aged on the lees with spontaneous malolactic fermentation. Disgorgement liqueur made from the house’s own barrel-aged wines and cane sugar. No filtration, fining, cold stabilisation or chaptalisation.
- Country
- France
- Region
- Champagne
- Sub-region
- Vallée de la Marne
- Village
- Binson-et-Orquigny (autre cru)
- Lieu-dit
- La Carrelle
- Planted
- 1976, massal selection
- Soil
- Clay-silt over a thick bed of fossil shells
- Aspect
- South
- Viticulture
- Benjamin Choppin works every parcel himself, in the vines daily through the season, and harvests by hand, parcel by parcel, the way a Burgundian would. One rule governs the domaine: respect for the living. No herbicide or insecticide is used; the only composts are certified organic; and the plots are bordered by trees, meadows and flowering strips to keep the biodiversity around the vines. HVE-certified since 2018, farmed along organic lines without seeking certification.
- Vintage
- 2022
- Vessel
- 228 L oak barrels
- On the lees
- 40 months
- Dosage
- 1 g/L · Extra-Brut
- Sulfur
- Minimal — a small addition for stability in transit
- Filtration
- Unfiltered, unfined, no cold stabilisation
- Vinification
- Each parcel is pressed and vinified separately. Fermentation is spontaneous, on indigenous yeasts, in oak casks of 225 to 600 litres from the Tonnellerie de Champagne, followed by a spontaneous malolactic and a long élevage on the lees. Nothing is fined, filtered, cold-stabilised or chaptalised. The disgorgement liqueur is the house's own barrel-aged wine and cane sugar; dosage runs from zero to one gram, and sulfur is kept to a small addition for stability in transit.
- Case
- 6
2022 in Champagne
A hot, dry summer after a wet June, with harvest starting in the last week of August. Vines carried a full, healthy crop and ripened it easily; acidity held better than the heat suggested. A generous, sunny vintage that filled cellars emptied by 2021 — ripe fruit, breadth, early charm.
The 2022 La Carrelle
Notes to follow.
DomTheSomm note
Notes to follow.