Les Regards d’Avize Grand Cru Blanc de Blancs 2014

Tasting Notes for Les Regards d’Avize Grand Cru Blanc de Blancs 2014 by Waris-Larmandier

Colour & Appearance

Medium gold yellow, laced with an exceptionally fine, elegant mousse.

Nose

Classic Champagne style with pronounced autolysis: aromas of freshly baked brioche, delicate patisserie and a touch of nougat. Accompanied by juicy, ripe yellow fruit featuring agrumes as well as pome and stone fruit, rounded off by nuances of dates, praline and a hint of honey.

Palate

On the palate, the wine demonstrates an incisive, perfectly proportioned acidity alongside a creamy, silky mouthfeel. Ripe flavours of grapefruit and citrus fruits combine with abundant lees character. The style remains uncompromisingly linear, underpinned by a deep, salty minerality.

Terroir & Origin

The grapes hail from a single Grand Cru parcel measuring just 42.79 ares in Avize at an altitude of 100 metres, situated in the heart of the famous Côte des Blancs.

Grape Variety & Vinification

Single-varietal Chardonnay from a plot planted back in 1963. For the 2014 vintage, Jean-Philippe Waris relied on hand harvesting and gentle pressing in the traditional Coquard press, utilising exclusively the first-run juice. Fermentation and ageing took place spontaneously in used 600-litre demi-muids from Burgundy, with no added sulphur prior to bottling. Following a minimum of five years’ ageing sur lattes, the Champagne was disgorged manually without dosage (Zéro Dosage). The reduced pressure of 4.5 bar imparts an unmistakable smoothness to the wine.

Food Pairings

An outstanding match for prawns with pea and lemon risotto and watercress, refined Fjord trout with Amalfi lemon mayonnaise and roasted Jerusalem artichoke, or even roasted chicken wings with curry panko flakes and rice crackers.

Key Features

An extremely limited single-vineyard Champagne – bottled in an edition of only around 700 bottles. Crafted according to Demeter-certified biodynamic guidelines and defined by the house’s bold 4.5-bar approach, which creates an incomparably soft, accessible texture.