Our hero Gilles Lancelot comes from a long lineage of growers in the Cote des Blancs. His great-grandfather planted his own grapes in Cramant after World War I, and worked as Mumm’s vineyard manager, and Gilles’ grandfather began bottling his domain Champagne after WWII. In 1967, his father married Brigitte Pienne from Chouilly and the two domains merged. Gilles took up the mantle of Lancelot-Pienne in 2005 after studying enology and working alongside his father for over a decade. 

Thanks to his family roots, Gilles was able to buy the old Mumm winery in Cramant in the early 2000s. He now farms 22 acres of vines, still based in Cramant, but his 55 parcels are spread along the northern sector of the Côte des Blancs and down into the Côteaux Sud d’Epernay and into the Marne Valley. His “Table Ronde” Grand Cru blend comes from 50 year old vines from 21 parcels in Cramant, (60%) giving the wine creaminess and mineral chalk salinity – Chouilly (30%) for fruitiness and Avize (10%) for its raw, lean acidity. 

He ferments and ages in steel tanks, with 20% of the final blend coming from a solera dating back 14 years. Lancelot was notoriously King Arthur’s knight-hand-man, and seeing as Gilles married Céline Perceval, and Perceval was another mythic knight, it was true destiny for them to create this Holy Grail bottling.

This is a round table forum on the virtues of Chardonnay: there’s salt water taffy and nougat on the nose, fresh golden apple and apricot compote fruit core, topped with flecks of creme brulee, and yet it is pure and transparent, brisk and crisp and cutting (as Excalibur?) with the mineral charge of all that Cote des Blancs chalk. The whole package is playful and mythic, and somehow as nostalgic and satisfying as a thick slice of birthday cake.

3.5 g/L, 80% 2015 base wine disgorged Feb 2019, 36 months sur lees, solera since 1998