🍾 Nicolas Feuillatte Cuvée Légendaire

Nicolas Feuillatte Cuvée Légendaire is a non-vintage white Champagne from the house Nicolas Feuillatte in Chouilly, in the Côte des Blancs.

According to the house, the Cuvée Légendaire is its prestige blend of 50 % Chardonnay and 50 % Pinot Noir, combining ten harvests chosen one by one by the cellar master (1998, 2000, 2004, 2005, 2007, 2010, 2011, 2015, 2016 and 2018): one third base wines, one third reserve wines and one third bottles aged "sur lattes" (on slats), with a weighted average ageing of 8.5 years.

Nicolas Feuillatte is the brand of a growers’ cooperative in Chouilly: the Centre Vinicole de la Champagne, founded in 1972, bought the brand, created in 1976, in 1986.

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). Check the label for the sugar term (brut, extra brut and so on): the house does not state it on the wine's page.

Why it matters to you. No year on the label means it is not a vintage wine: the house may blend wines from different harvests. The WHO reminds: there is no safe level of alcohol.