🍾 Alfred Gratien Brut Vintage 2016

Alfred Gratien Brut Vintage 2016 is the 2016 release of Brut Vintage by the house Alfred Gratien, a vintage white Champagne in the Brut style.

According to the house, the house’s vintage cuvée from the grapes of a single year; the wine is fermented in oak, like the whole range.

Alfred Gratien is a family house from Épernay founded in 1864; according to the house, its wines have been fermented in oak from the start, and the cellar holds close to a thousand barrels.

The boundaries of the Champagne area were set by a law of 6 May 1919: parts of the Marne, Aube, Aisne, Haute-Marne and Seine-et-Marne departments. The designation’s specification allows seven grape varieties, dominated by Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier; grapes are picked as whole bunches, that is by hand, and the yield is limited to 10,400 kg per hectare.

According to the Comité Champagne, Champagne is served chilled to 8–10 °C, and bottles are kept in the dark at a steady 10–15 °C, without vibration. An opened bottle is best closed with a sparkling-wine stopper and kept cold.

It is sold under the protected designation of origin Champagne: the bubbles come only from a second fermentation in the bottle, and the wine is aged for at least 15 months before sale (36 for vintage). Brut on the label is an EU sugar term: less than 12 g of sugar per litre.

Why it matters to you. The year on the label is the harvest year, so different years of the same line are different wines. The WHO reminds: there is no safe level of alcohol.