Jerome Prevost – La Closerie Cuvee Les Beguines LC06

100% Pinot Meunier made Champagne

In the anticipation of the American Valentine’s day, together with my wife, we opened a bottle of Champagne I had in the cellar for a couple of months bought from abroad. My wife was on a business trip in Switzerland the whole last week, so it was a great occasion to celebrate her return. After a walk in the park on a beautifully sunny SAT afternoon with an amazing 14 Celsius degrees and a long awaited warm weather that hopefully will not leave us anymore, we paid a visit to our friend Calin at Le Manoir to get some freshly cut Bellota Iberian ham to go with the Champagne. The mix Iberian ham – Champagne was perfect as the richness of the sparkling found the exact matching ingredients in the Spanish ham. Regarding the wine itself here is what I found about this producer:

“Jerome Prevost, a child of the late 1960s, took over his family’s 2.2 ha of vines at Gueux, on Montagne de Reims, at the age of twenty-one. After selling his grapes to others, he started making his own wine when celebrated fellow-grower Anselme Selosse made space for him in his winery from 1998 to 2001. Attempting to get the best out of his vines, planted in the 1960s, he plows and uses bio-dynamic preparations. He ferments in wood (mostly barriques) and, standing conventional wisdom on its head, prefers the wine to have extended contact with lees from indigenous yeast in barrel, rather than with lees from selected yeast in bottle. Because of their richness and ripeness, they have only a very light dosage, leaving them Extra Brut. He works by himself, makes only one wine, always from a single year, and always a single variety – Pinot Meunier. That may not sound so remarkable, but La Closerie Cuvee Les Beguines is an extremely interesting wine.”

He labels the wines after each vintage as LC06 for 2006, LC07 for 2007 etc. So this vintage Champagne was served together with some really high quality Bellota Iberian ham from Carrasco, Guijuelo.

Bellota Iberian ham

More details about this ham producer you can read on an older post of this blog.

simple and elegant label

Jerome Prevost – La Closerie Cuvee Les Beguines LC06

There is a deep gold-amber color with really smooth bubbles. The nose is elegant and intense with brioche, yeast, lemon, toast and interesting exotic spices, with hints of old cognac, hazelnut and even some discreet caramel. The taste is creamy, full body, round, well balanced, elegant mouth-feel with intense and pure flavors of lime, lemon, Asian spices, nuts and toast. Fullness, power and elegance characterize the thick creamy texture that covers the palate completely. The finish is long with freshness, elegance and a long dry creamy hazelnut aftertaste.  93+ points

beautiful deep color

This Champagne is way above any Dom Perignon I had so far and it comes at a much lower price than the prestige cuvee of Moet Chandon. A Champagne to look for and try without any hesitation.

she is my Valentine

Have yourself a Happy Valentine’s day next to your beloved one.

Thanks for reading!