Alcohol: 12.5%
Grape(s): 45% chardonnay, 35% pinot noir and 20% pinot meunier
Localization: Champagne, France
Tasting Notes: Very attractive aromas of cooked apple with fresh brioche. Bread dough and some lemon rind, too. Medium to full body with a creamy and refined mouth feel and a rounded finish. Some almond and cooked apple in the aftertaste. The fruit of Jacquesson labors was a crop of healthy, mature grapes with particular mention for the Pinot Noirs which were super successful. Reserve wines from previous 700 Cuvées complete the blend.
Notes: With viticulture that is respectful of the wine and the soil emphasizing the diversity of our various plots. Vinification and elevage on the lees in oak foudres with no filtration or fining.
The Domain: Champagne Jacquesson was founded in 1798 by Memmie Jacquesson and he did so well that Napoléon gave him a medal. The business left family hands toward the end of the 1800s and eventually was bought by the Chiquet family in 1974. Today Jacquesson is jointly managed by Jean-Hervé and Laurent Chiquet. Jean-Hervé, once the cellar master, now primarily runs the commercial aspects of the business, while his younger brother Laurent runs the production side and has taken the role of chef de cave. In a given year, Champagne Jacquesson farms between 69 and 76 acres in the grand cru villages of Aÿ, Avize, and Oiry, and in the premier cru villages of Hautvillers, Dizy, and Mareuil-Sur-Aÿ. The acres vary because the house owns 69 acres with the option to take farming contracts on as many as 7 more, and Jacquesson does all the farming on whatever it contracts for.
Sustainable practices are the norm here, and one-third of Jacquesson’s vineyards are certified organic. The brothers use vertical presses rather than more abusive horizontal presses. The juice flows by gravity into steel tanks for 24 hours of settling, after which it is transferred to large neutral wood casks (foudres) for several months to undergo alcoholic and malolactic fermentations. The dosage is typically in the extra-brut range of one to six grams of sugar per liter.
The aim of the 7-series is to emphasize the best qualities of a given year, rather than to dumb down individual vintages to make a uniform non-vintage. It’s worth noting that this series is being aged progressively longer in bottle so that by the time Cuvée 734 was released in May 2010 it had a full three years of bottle age, including four months after disgorgement. Jean-Hervé and Laurent had decided that the 7-series would be Jacquesson’s best-blended wine. Going forward, the vintage wines would be limited to the four single-vineyard wines, made only in good years and in very limited numbers, while the house’s one blend would be the 7-series. The requirements for the vintage-dated single vineyards are simple: the wine must have a distinct personality, one that reflects its terroir, and it is not needed in the 7-series blend.
