The Most Profoundly Delicious Champagne We've Had this Year!
The most delicious Champagne we’ve had this year comes from Lafalise Froissart, a very small property run by vigneron Paul Froissart.
Froissart crafts his "Cuvée 108" from a small plot of Pinot Noir that he lovingly tends in the Grand Cru village of Verzenay - famous as one of the principal sources for Roederer's Cristal.
We first tasted this wine several months ago and were gobsmacked. When it arrived a few weeks ago it was even more stunning than we remembered, with delicious flavors, enrobing textures, and thrilling minerality that managed to activate every pleasure center in our brain!
This is a Grand Cru Champagne that offers precision rivaling Vilmart, along with a character that is entirely its own. It is the most delicious Champagne we have tasted all year, and we bring it to you today for just $65.99.
Read on for the details, and for Paul's even more limited production "Cuvée 090" Blanc de Blancs Grand Cru vintage Champagne, then click very rapidly on the Big Yellow Button before our tiny supplies get snapped up!
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Lafalise-Froissart "Cuvée 108"
Extra Brut Blanc de Noirs Grand Cru Champagne NV
Verzenay, Champagne, France
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Wow. Wow. Wow. This wine is extraordinary. Breathing in deep, we found wild cherry and cassis notes along with a big hit of white stone minerality. This wine hits you all at once, then it even gets better on the next sip.
Showing a sophisticated balance of searing energy and decadent richness along with a vibrant bubbly stream, this is a wine that transfers its energy directly to your soul.
Pouring a pale copper, medium straw color, Paul crafted this non-vintage beauty from Pinot Noir grown in the Les Chauffours vineyard, a Grand Cru site in Verzy. Disgorged on November 16th, 2023, and finished with a perfectly harmonious 5 g/L dosage, it is quite concentrated and viscous in the glass, and the nose is VERY expressive.
As mentioned in the intro, we tasted a sample bottle over the summer and it knocked our socks off. We tasted it last week at our Elston Avenue store's Champagne event and were floored. This tiny production bottling, with only 258 cases produced, is flabbergastingly amazing. Not only was it the wine of the night, it is our Champagne of the year!
Looking online, we found just two listings for this pinnacle Champagne, one at $95 and the other at $100. It is worth every penny of those amounts. At our price, this stunner from Paul Froissart is an outright steal. We have only 15 cases available today, and they will be gone in a flash!
Vin Chicago Price: 65.99
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Lafalise-Froissart "Cuvée 090"
Extra Brut Blanc de Blancs Grand Cru Champagne 2020
Verzy, Champagne, France
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This vintage bottling from Lafalise-Froissart is possibly the only wine that could follow their Cuvée 108. In the 2020 vintage, Paul crafted just 50 cases of "Cuvée 090" using 100% Chardonnay from his tiny parcel in the “La Queue des Loges” vineyard in the Grand Cru village of Verzy.
Intensely chalky, this dry white Champagne was disgorged on May 28, 2024. Like the Cuvée 108, it was finished with a dosage of 5 g/L, and it feels brisk! With sizzling citrus, taut orchard fruits, and a super powerful density in the mouth, this wine really makes you pause. The intensity of the bubbles, the textural density, and the mouthwatering acidity, it’s wonderful!
Incredibly long, lingering on the palate for at least three minutes, the Cuvée 090 is a knockout. This wine will be even better in another two to three years and will cellar effortlessly for well beyond that. Only 600 bottles were produced, and we are very fortunate to have gotten hold of 10% of them.
The only price listing we could find was the previous vintage, where a retailer in Japan is offering it for ¥24,200, which converts to just over $157.
Vin Chicago Price: 99.99
