Champagne Jacquesson Cuvée 740 Dégorgement Tardif Extra Brut NV Jacquesson, good people! This legendary house needs little introduction… simply among the greatest Champagne houses in all of Champagne.

Champagne Jacquesson was founded in 1798 by Memmie Jacquesson, in the midst of France’s revolutionary war. Right out the gate, these wines were so good that Napoleon gave him a medal… seriously. In 1835, his son, Adolphe took charge and implemented some monumentally important innovations that would forever change the world of wine. Along with Dr. Guyot, they implemented the radical notion of training vines in orderly rows (Guyot pruning is one of the most dominant methods used to this day). To reduce Champagne bottles exploding, he worked with a chemist to begin accurately measuring sugar levels in alcohol, to great effect. And lastly, he invented the muselet, more commonly known as a Champagne cage, helping to secure the corks of nearly every sparkling wine in the world ever since. Cool stuff, right?

But the wine! The wine! Oh my, is this a treat. Based on the 2012 vintage, with 20% reserve wine added to the mix, this is a layered, complex, and nuanced bubbly that has so much going on, we’ll run out of room before we can describe it all. River rocks, lemon meringue, minty, orange blossom, croissants, lime zest - piquant and minerally with a bright, clotted cream richness, chamomile, green apples… just fully-loaded with goodness from the start.

The business left family hands toward the end of the 1800s, and eventually was bought by the Chiquet family in 1974. Today Jacquesson is jointly managed by Jean-Hervé and Laurent Chiquet – with Jean-Hervé, once the cellar master, running the business and his younger brother Laurent serving as chef de cave. While Jacquesson does purchase fruit, (20 acres from long-standing contracted growers) the majority of their fruit (roughly 80% of their production) is grown themselves – with a focus on the grand cru villages of Aÿ, Avize, and Oiry, and in the premier cru villages of Hautvillers, Dizy, and Mareuil-sur-Aÿ. The Chiquets are less interested in grape varietal than they are in location – and prefer to talk villages to blend percentages. This wine is roughly 50% chardonnay, with the rest a near equal split of pinot noir and pinot meunier. 

Of the roughly 80 acres that are farmed for their wines, 100% are managed and farmed directly… and all are farmed sustainably (and over one third organically). The Jacquesson house has developed a reputation for the  lowest yields anywhere in Champagne, opting for concentration and quality over quantity. Just over 1000 cases of this rare creature were made, and we fought like a cornered bear to get three of them. We opened one for the fizz meter (and team quality control/education/It’s Friday)! So don’t  waste a single moment longer reading… grab yours now!