Champagne Jacques Selosse Le Mesnil sur Oger Grand Cru Les Carelles NV Base 16, Disg. Jan 2022

Les Carelles is one of six single-parcel Champagnes in the Selosse Lieux-dits collection, a blanc de blancs from the Grand Cru village of Le Mesnil-sur-Oger.

Le Mesnil-sur-Oger is the Côte des Blancs village most associated with taut, chalk-driven Chardonnay of great longevity, and the name Carelles refers to the quarrying of chalk on the site. Anselme Selosse took over the family house at Avize in 1980 and applied what he had learnt studying in Burgundy: very low yields, farming without chemicals, fermentation on the vineyard's own yeasts, little sulphur and long ageing on fine lees in wood. He retired in 2018 and his son Guillaume now runs the domaine. The Lieux-dits series was released from 2010 to show individual sites rather than blend them away, and total production across the six is tiny. Les Carelles draws on two parcels within the one lieu-dit, one on a steep south-facing slope and the other facing east. Like the rest of the set it is roughly sixty per cent base harvest topped up from a perpetual reserve begun in 2003, raised oxidatively in oak and finished with minimal dosage.

This bottle carries a 2016 base and was disgorged in January 2022; best given a few years and drunk over the following decade. Serve at 8°C with oysters, scallops or a mature hard cheese.