The Montchenot 1er Cru 2021 cuvée from Nicolas Maillart is a single-village champagne from Villers-Allerand. Every grape comes from the hamlet of Montchenot, which belongs to that village.
Montchenot sits at the junction of the Petite and Grande Montagne de Reims, with sand, clay and chalk in the soil; it is the chalk that gives the wine its freshness. This is a cuvée that speaks of red fruits and citrus, with a hint of oak. Its generous, almost food-wine texture stays crisp throughout.
In Magnum, it is a bottle you can open with the first nibbles, with cheese gougères for instance, and then bring back to the table alongside pan-fried sweetbreads.
Le Terroir
The Montchenot 1er Cru 2021 cuvée is a Blanc de Pinots Noirs, meaning it is made solely from Pinot Noir.
These Pinot Noir grapes come from the terroir of Montchenot, a village on the Grande Montagne de Reims, where Nicolas Maillart tends his vines. The fruit is drawn from plots in this one village alone: no other cru goes into this cuvée, which gives it a precise and clearly legible origin.
On this terroir, Pinot Noir brings structure and depth to the wine.
La vinification
Nicolas Maillart, who makes this cuvée, chose to age this 2021 Pinot Noir, vinified as a white wine, in barrel. The oak adds toasty, oaky notes that slip in behind the fruit and enrich the nose.
For this Montchenot 1er Cru, malolactic fermentation (the secondary fermentation that converts the grape's sharp malic acid into softer lactic acid) was blocked. The wine therefore keeps all of its vivacity: on the palate it remains linear and razor-sharp, without the buttery character that this step would have brought.
This choice shapes a white wine with real character, for those who love precise, energetic wines: the oak dresses it without rounding it off, and freshness stays at the forefront of the tasting.
Le millésime 2021
On the Montagne de Reims, 2021 was a vintage of contrasts. A brief warm spell at the end of March woke the vines. Then a blast of polar air at Easter brought back the spring frost, one of the most severe the Champagne vineyards have ever seen. A very wet May and a rain-soaked summer then pushed the season along at an unusual pace. Picking came earlier than expected, and yields were among the lowest in over 35 years. In the Pinot Noir of Montchenot, the year has produced a champagne of clean freshness and straight tension, tailor-made for lovers of vibrant wines.
