NV Laherte Frères Rosé de Meunier

WINEMAKER: Aurélien Laherte
REGION: Champagne, FR
VARIETY: Pinot Meunier
VITICULTURE: Organic/Biodynamic

Disgorged January 2023. This dazzling Meunier represents superb value in a market where rosé wines are getting more and more pricey. It’s a blend of Meunier vinified three ways. Some 60% of the volume is from fruit pressed off in the traditional way to make a white wine (over one-third of this component was reserve wines that had been aged in barrels). A second, 30% portion was made as a saignée rosé (the juice left in contact with the skins for a short period). The final 10% of the blend is from a full-blown red wine.

The fruit producing the white wine is from vines with an average age of 25 years, and the vines for the red and rosé wines are more than 40 years old. The wines were fermented and aged in a variety of vessels (vats, foudre and old demi-muid barrels) before being transferred to bottle for secondary fermentation. This release is a blend of 2019 (60%) and 2018 and was disgorged with just 2.5 g/L dosage. It’s a beauty.

The vineyard practices at Laherte Frères are impressive. Most of the estate is biodynamically farmed except for those vineyards that are too far away to do so (mainly those in the Côte des Blancs and the Marne Valley). These latter sites are still managed organically, with the soils cultivated and no herbicides or pesticides used.

The high standards continue in the cellar. Aurèlien uses the traditional Coquard wooden Champagne presses. He has two of these (very unusual for an estate of this small size), which allows him to press more quickly and to keep small parcels separate. The wines are moved only by gravity. Fermentation occurs with natural yeast, and more than 80 percent of the wine is fermented and matured in large foudres and old barriques (as all Champagne once was pre the 1950s). Interestingly, Aurèlien buys barrels from Benjamin Leroux and the Liger-Belair family (of la Romanée fame).