Champagne Prevost La Closerie Les Béguines (Base 22, Disg. Sep 2024)

This is 2022 base with 20% reserve wine. Prévost’s 2.2-hectare vineyard, Les Béguines, is in Gueux, 10km west of Reims in the north of Champagne. The soil is a layer cake of calcareous (Thanetian) sand over clay, over more calcareous sand. Inherited from Jérôme’s grandmother, the site was planted in the 1960s with an old, slow-growing, less productive rootstock that descends deep. Les Béguines is close to 100% Meunier, although there is now a small parcel of 10-year-old Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Blanc planted next to the Meunier (these vines represent roughly six per cent of the blend). The vineyard is managed organically, with the soils cultivated exclusively by horse and yields kept at balanced levels.

As always, the wine was vinified without any additions, in large-format used barrels for 10 months, and was bottled unfiltered. Prévost disgorged this release after 18 months on lees and added 2.5g/L dosage. In the past, this was always a tightly wound wine that needed a number of years to open. Now, with the warmer climate and evolution in farming and winemaking—including the addition of reserve wine—it’s another world. The wines are now approachable from an early age, and the 2022 base is no exception. It explodes from the glass and fills the mouth with waves of sappy, juicy fruit. It’s a unique and seductive Champagne with a long, spicy finish that suggests hops and crushed chalk.