🍾 Nicolas Feuillatte Grande Réserve Demi-Sec

Nicolas Feuillatte Grande Réserve Demi-Sec is a non-vintage white Champagne in the Demi-Sec style from the house Nicolas Feuillatte in Chouilly, in the Côte des Blancs, part of its Grande Réserve range.

According to the house, the blend is 40 % Pinot Noir, 40 % Pinot Meunier and 20 % Chardonnay, aged in the cellar for 4 to 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). Demi-Sec on the label is an EU sugar term: 32 to 50 g of sugar per litre.

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