The Garance 2016 from Thiénot is a champagne made exclusively from Pinot Noir and Meunier. This choice of grape varieties gives a white wine with real character.
This Blanc de Noirs shows notes of citrus and yellow fruit, lifted by a touch of oak that reveals itself with time. The palate is vinous and mineral, given tension by a freshness that runs through every sip. This is a champagne you can pour from the aperitif onwards, alongside comté gougères for instance, before bringing it to the table with poultry and morels.
Only 7,000 bottles of this cuvée were produced.
The Terroir
The Garance 2016 is a blend of:
- 80% Pinot Noir
- 20% Meunier
These grapes come from the terroirs of Cumières and Aÿ in the Vallée de la Marne, as well as Rilly-la-Montagne on the Montagne de Reims, all classified Premier Cru, where Thiénot tends its vines.
On these terroirs, Pinot Noir lends the wine a firm structure and a hint of saline tension, while Meunier brings rounder, more generous fruit.
Winemaking
At Thiénot, the blend for this Garance 2016 combines 80% Pinot Noir and 20% Meunier. Fermentation takes place entirely in stainless steel tanks, a choice that preserves the freshness of the fruit. Malolactic fermentation was complete, which softens the acidity and adds silkiness to the palate. The wine was cellared in August 2017, then aged on its lees for over ten years in the House's cellars on rue des Moissons in Reims — time that develops notes of brioche and candied fruit. The dosage, set at 6 g/L, classes this champagne as Extra Brut: a wafer-thin dosage that lets the purity of the fruit shine through without ever weighing the wine down.
The 2016 Vintage
The 2016 growing season began with a cool, damp spring in Champagne, before turning into a dry, hot summer that let the vines make up for lost time. On the slopes of the Vallée de la Marne, in Cumières and Aÿ, as on those of the Montagne de Reims in Rilly-la-Montagne, this shift in the weather particularly benefited Pinot Noir and Meunier, harvested under the September sun with lovely ripeness. The grapes turned out more refined than powerful, in a register of delicacy rather than force. This vintage gave the Garance its delicate freshness and silky texture, true to the spirit of a Blanc de Noirs.
