🍾 Canard-Duchêne Cuvée V 2012

Canard-Duchêne Cuvée V 2012 is the 2012 release of Cuvée V by the house Canard-Duchêne, a vintage white Champagne in the Brut Nature style.

According to the house, it is a blend of Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier made by Laurent Fédou, the house's cellar master for more than 20 years, with a Brut Nature dosage.

The house Canard-Duchêne was founded in 1868 in Ludes, on the Montagne de Reims, by the cooper Victor Canard and the grower Léonie Duchêne.

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 Nature on the label is an EU sugar term: less than 3 g of sugar per litre and no sugar added after the second fermentation.

Why it matters to you. According to the house, it comes in: a 0.75 l bottle. 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.