Champagne Laherte Frères Blanc de Blancs NV Base 16. Disg. Oct 2018

Laherte Frères' Blanc de Blancs is an all-Chardonnay Champagne from a single base year, with about half the blend made up of reserve wine and no dosage to speak of.

The house sits at Chavot, just south of Épernay, and has been in the family since 1889; Aurélien Laherte, the seventh generation, took charge in 2005. He works some seventy-five parcels over roughly ten hectares in ten villages, using biodynamic preparations, plant infusions and cover crops in the vineyard and a ten-strong team to do the work. The Chardonnay comes from the slopes of the Coteaux Sud d'Épernay and from the Côte des Blancs, thin soils over chalk. Each parcel is pressed and fermented separately on indigenous yeasts, mostly in neutral barrels, and the wine goes into bottle without fining or filtration. A large proportion of reserve wine gives the cuvée its consistency, and it is finished as a brut nature, with base year and disgorgement date on the label.

Ready on release, and it will hold and gain breadth over several years. Serve at around 8°C with oysters, sashimi or a young goat's cheese.