The many sides of Chardonnay: a study of terroir and style
Dear Extra Brut Friends,
A deep dive into the very bleeding edge of blanc de blanc Grower Champagnes? At first blush, you’d think that’s what this month’s selection is all about. After all, we have two 100% Chardonnay wines from tiny, relatively new and still obscure growers. Each of them works in the new wave style, farming by hand, harvesting beautifully ripe fruit, and using almost no dosage.
And you wouldn’t be wrong, exactly. But once you taste the wines you’ll see that this month is every bit as much a study of terroir (the fancy wine word for the physical characteristics of the vineyard, such as soil type, slope, orientation, latitude, and so forth) as it is of style. Because for all their obvious similarities in philosophy and approach, the wines are strikingly different expressions of Chardonnay. And most of that difference comes down to the terroir.
Cheers,
Your Friends at Flatiron Wines
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Product title
A guide to the best bubbles in the world and what makes them different from the Grandes Marques
Champagne is the world’s most famous sparkling wine. Hailing from the Champagne regions of France, its biggest names are among the biggest names in wine: Moet, Dom Perignon, Veuve Clicquot, Cristal.
But there’s another side to Champagne: a universe of small-scale producers preserving ancient family farming traditions and bottling wines you’ve never heard of.
These are the Grower Champagnes.