View 2013 Champagne Catalog - Michael Skurnik Wines

Jean Lallement
Montagne de Reims // Verzenay
vineyard area // 4.5 hectares
annual production // 1,700 cases
villages & soil types // Verzenay Grand Cru (limestone)
grape varieties // 80% Pinot Noir, 20% Chardonnay
Michel Bettane was flipping through this catalogue and issuing various mutters of
approval or otherwise, but when he got to Lallement he boomed out “Lallement:
I discovered them!”
Montagne de Reims
Jean Lallement
As well he did, and I can see why they appeal to
him, as he lays high emphasis on precision, focus and
a crystalline texture. All of which these Champagnes
display. As do many others. But what very few
Champagnes display are these virtues together with
strikingly singular and distinctive terroir expression.
I am always secretly delighted when Lallement’s your
favorite among these Champagnes. There goes the
secret. If you want me to totally approve of your gnarly
hippitude, just froth over Lallement and I’ll donate my
organs to your family.
Just four wines—but what wines! Original,
complex, inimitable and yummy, and all from a young
vigneron who’s restlessly improving every year.
Starting with his 2004s the wines aren’t filtered
or cold-stabilized, and they are fermented with
ambient yeasts. This tiny little winery, producing all of
1700 cases, is showing how things should be done.
Let's talk about this Grand Cru Verzenay.
It’s a singular flavor and Lallement’s virile
style exemplifies it. This doesn’t seem the terroir for
someone who wants to make gracious or delicate wines.
If it were Burgundy it’d be Nuits-St.-Georges; animal
and sauvage. Juhlin accords it special praise, saying “The
village produces the blackest grapes in all Champagne...
rich, peppery and virile. As a Pinot village, Verzenay is
definitely the genuine star of the Montagne de Reims...
pepper and iron notes... persistently long and hard for
many years before it settles down to utter perfection.”
Lallement’s vineyards are spread between
Verzenay and Verzy both Grand Cru. It’s 80%/20%,
Pinot Noir/ Chardonnay, as you’d expect in these parts.
There are twenty different parcels, about half of which are
older than 40 years. Yes to malolactic.
Lallement at a glance // Grand Cru village in the Montagne de Reims making powerful, grippingly intense Pinot
Noir-type Champagnes. Tiny producer, only four wines, but WHAT WINES!
30