À l'Aube de la Côte des Bar

À l'Aube de la Côte des Bar is the house blend of Louise Brison, half Pinot Noir and half Chardonnay, and like the rest of the current range it is built around a single year. The fruit comes from their slopes around Noé-les-Mallets in the Aube, facing south-south-east on Kimmeridgian clay and limestone, the marl that ties the Côte des Bar more closely to Chablis than to Reims.

The 2005 followed the method Francis Brulez set when he turned the estate towards vintage wines in 1991. The wine was fermented and raised in oak barrels for about nine months, with each barrel tracked by parcel and variety until the blend was made, and then bottled in June for its second fermentation.

What makes this bottle unusual is time. The house chose to keep its wines back rather than sell them young, and the 2005 belongs to its Mémoire de la Côte des Bar series, a library of À l'Aube vintages from 1997 to 2010 released long after the harvest. The house first sold the 2005 as Légende, the name its own award list still uses.