Ambonnay Millésime Grand Cru

This is the Beauforts' first home. The family started in Ambonnay, a grand cru on the south-eastern side of the Montagne de Reims, and still farms a small share of its vines there, on chalk, while most of the estate now lies far to the south at Polisy, in the Côte des Bar. The house describes its Ambonnay wines as structured and powerful, with the chalk letting Pinot Noir and Chardonnay speak plainly. It calls Ambonnay a Champagne for meditation, and Polisy, the source of the Polisy Millésime 1996, a Champagne for action. The house has farmed without synthetic chemicals since 1971, when Jacques Beaufort gave up the sprays that had given him allergies.

Gault&Millau gives the 2003 as 80% Pinot Noir and 20% Chardonnay.

In the cellar the most important rule is patience. Bottles stay on their lees until they are sold, then are disgorged by hand, à la volée, which is why a Beaufort vintage tends to appear in small batches over many years. This lot spent nearly twenty years on its lees and went through the same round of hand disgorgement as the Polisy 1996.

The year itself was unlike any other. April frosts hit the vineyard hard, and in August the CIVC called the conditions a first for Champagne and expected about half a normal harvest across the region. The summer heatwave brought picking forward into August, weeks ahead of the usual calendar. The Beauforts' answer to a year like that was, as usual, time.