🍾 Philipponnat Cuvée 1522 Extra-Brut 2018

Philipponnat Cuvée 1522 Extra-Brut 2018 is the 2018 release of Cuvée 1522 by the house Philipponnat, a vintage white Champagne in the Extra Brut style.

According to the house, a grand cru blend: Pinot Noir from the historic Le Léon plots in Aÿ, plus a grand cru from the northern Montagne de Reims and one from the Côte des Blancs (usually Mailly and Le Mesnil-sur-Oger); the wine is fermented mainly in wooden barrels without malolactic fermentation; the dosage is 4 g/l; the bottles age 6–8 years in the cellar.

Philipponnat is a house from Mareuil-sur-Aÿ; according to the house, the family has lived in Champagne since 1522 and owns 20 ha of premier and grand cru vineyards, including the Clos des Goisses.

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). Extra Brut on the label is an EU sugar term: 0 to 6 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.