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Boris· @Dominika P
Jacques Selosse
Lieux-Dits La Côte Faron
NV
4.4
Region
France › Champagne › Vallée de la Marne › Aÿ › Champagne AOC
Type
white · traditional · sparkling · extra-brut
Grapes
Pinot Noir
Alcohol
12.5%
Volume
750 mL
Tasting Notes(1)
4.4
Deep gold and loud from the first pour - deeply oxidative and appley, sherry notes over candied citrus, roasted coffee beans, dried fruits, honey and chalk. Concentrated, the long elevage showing in the best way, and the texture is the point: sappy, dense, almost chewable, carrying the finish a long way. Cool oxidation, complex, fun - and entirely itself.
About
La Cote Faron is the Ay member of Selosse's Lieux-Dits series - six parcels in six villages - "6 vins manifestement identifiables", as the label puts it. This one is a Blanc de Noirs from a single Pinot Noir parcel on La Cote Faron in Ay Grand Cru, and the oldest idea in the set: it began life as the cuvee Contraste, built on a perpetual reserve started in 1994, and was folded into the Lieux-Dits collection when the series launched in 2010. Each release blends that solera with a share of the newest base vintage.
House method throughout: indigenous yeasts, fermentation in barrels with a modest share of new oak, oxidative elevage, around five years on lees, minimal dosage (recent disgorgements around 1.5 g/l, Extra Brut). Production is tiny - on the order of 1,700 bottles a year. This bottle carries no printed disgorgement date: since around 2022 Selosse moved that data into an NFC chip under the back label, readable with the WID smartphone app.
