The Moncuit family traces their grape growing lineage in the Côtes des Blancs village of Le Mesnil-sur-Ogerback to the late 19th century and their winemaking to the early 1950s. Siblings Nicole and Yves Moncuit have been running the show since 1977 and are currently producing some of the best wines in the estate’s history. Moncuit’s wines are all single vintage bottlings that are all about purity and excel at expressing the nuances of a given year. This vineyard is on the region’s classic chalky limestone and with an average vine age of 60 years. The Moncuit family doesn’t own a single oak barrel so any aging of the wine occurs either in tank or in bottle.
What a decade can do! Such lush and elegant beauty, as creamy and silky as Straus vanilla soft-serve, but with Chablis-like minerality and toasted brioche backbone. Meyer lemon marmalade on toast with creme fraiche, lemon meringue topped with toasted macadamia nuts. This wine has a macerated green apple b-side and delightful tertiary notes of the classic confectionery “caramel creams,” but with no fatigue in the acid department. All the notes you could want from a vintage Champagne, and at a hard to find screaming value.
100% Chardonnay from 2010 vintage, 3.5 g/l dosage. 3+ years Sur latte, 100% Malo. Disgorged November 2017.