THE JEFFERSON CLUB - DECEMBER 2022
Each year we encourage our members to splurge on a great bottles of bubbly, and this is no exception. To ring in 2023, we are offering our Jefferson Club Members an exceptional grower champagne, Lancelot-Pienne “Table Ronde” Grand Cru.
domaine LANCELOT-PIENNE
”tABLE rONDE” GRAND CRU BLANC DE BLANCS
Proprietor: Gilles Lancelot
Region: Cotes de Blancs, Champagne, FRA
Assemblage: 100% Chardonnay from three grand crus
Viticulture: 60% Cramant (chalky salinity); 30% Chouilly (fruitiness and elegance); 10% Avize (steely acidity and freshness)
Method: 80% from a single vintage; bottled in July after harvest, rests for 40 months prior to disgorgement; 3.5 grams of dosage
Serving Suggestions: serve at 44-48F
Age: drink 2023 - 2030
Nose: toast, white fruit, orange zest
Palate: spice, chalky minerality
Finish: persistent, powerful yet restrained
ABOUT Lancelot-Pienne
Gilles Lancelot, founder of Lancelot-Pienne, is a member of the esteemed Les Artisans du Champagne. This collection of only 17 growers (including other renowned growers like JM Seleque, Hure Freres, and Maillart) throughout champagne is founded upon the values of sharing, passion, respect, and common vision of their profession and responsibilities. The aim of this collection is to discover the diversity through bottling (and tasting together) single vineyards and Champagne wines with strong identities.
Gilles’ passion for crafting unique, character-driven Champagne runs in his family’s blood. His great-grandfather was the vineyard manager for Mumm and turned the family’s interest into vineyards in Cramant, a grand cru village within the Cotes de Blancs subregion of Champagne. His grandfather began estate-bottling their own wines shortly after World War 2, and it was his father that merged the domain with Pienne through his marriage to Brigitte Pienne. In 2005, Gilles stepped into the leading role at Lancelot-Pienne with his wife, Celine Perceval.
ABOUT THE WINE
To not speak of the quality of this wine would be remiss: a lauded small grower (of only 22 acres largely on grand cru sites), maturation entirely inert containers to focus on precision and freshness, minimum dosage to showcase the wine’s origins, and transparent purity are all buzzwords for exceptional Champagne. However, it is the story in the name that first drew my attention to the wine. Domaine Lancelot-Pienne’s regional Grand Cru blanc de blancs is named “Table Ronde,” or “Round Table.” This table of legend seated King Arthur’s knights, the most notable being the swordmaster Lancelot. Another noted knight is Percival, the Knight of the Round Table to succeed in his search of the Holy Grail. This wine transcends from legend into reality, as Gilles Lancelot, the proprietor of the domaine, married Celine Perceval.
“Gilles Lancelot produces lean, light, bright and crisp, spring-like Champagnes of remarkable purity and freshness. The style…is perfectly dry, pure, very refined, straight and mineral. These are elegant, and rather lean and filigreed rather than big, mouth-filling Champagnes.”