Friends of the Pod Series -- Ep 479: Champagne Le Brun de Neuville -- Côte de Sézanne's Stunning Sparklers

Wine for Normal People

Alcohol, Lifestyle, Arts, Education, Food, Wine, Dining, Grapes

4.6 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 26 June 2023

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Agathe Bellanger from Le Brun de Neuville Champagne joins to discuss the Chardonnay-centric Côte de Sézanne, the role of growers and smaller co-ops, the terroir of this small sub-region, and the beautiful wines her group makes. I LOVE these wines, which focus on longer lees aging.

Agathe Bellanger, Champagne Le Brun de Neuville.

Here are the lines of wines from Le Brun de Neuville:

The Côte : This is their house style, representing 80% of production. The goal of these wines is to express the terroir and the essence of Chardonnay. They are aged 3 to 4 years on the lees (the mandatory minimum is 15 months, and they go above and beyond). There are several wines in this line including a Demi-sec.

Les Chamins: Three wines in this line -- a blanc de blancs, rosé, and a Chardonnay and Pinot Noir blend -- are all single vineyard wines that represent specific plots and villages. In a nod to the historic methods, this wine is aged under cork instead of a crown cap. This method allows more oxygen transfer, and produces more complex flavors. Aged 4-5 years on the lees, this wine is excellent with food -- it is more gastronomic.

Autolyse: Made only in best years, these wines show what the top wines that have excellent aging potential can offer. These wines are aged 10-14 years on the lees. The blanc de blancs, rosé, a cuvee with 86% Pinot Noir (their only wine with a Pinot lead) are wines of terroir but also exhibit Champagne's characteristic breadiness from long aging. These wines are dedicated to people who like older wines

Vintage – MILLÉSIME. These wines are only released in top years. Right now 2008 and 2009 are available in the market with 2012 for rose. These wines age for a long time and show the best of the best years.

Seek these out! They are unbelievably delicious!

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Wine for Normal People, the podcast for people who like wine, but not the snobbery that goes with it.
0:13.2	I'm your host Elizabeth Schneider author of the Wine for Normal People Book and
0:19.5	certified wine dork and I'm MC Ice just a wine-loving normal person. This podcast is wine sparkling wines you've got to check them out. Wine access.com slash W.FMP get 10% off your first order.
0:37.8	Listen in the middle of the show for more details.
0:41.6	I had the pleasure of meeting Agat Belanger in an event in Durham, North Carolina not too far from where I live.
0:49.0	She was lively, lovely, the entire crowd was gathered around her so knowledgeable about
0:55.1	Champagne le Bron de Novell. The wine was unbelievable. These are not your run-of-the-mill
1:01.2	Champagne. They are wines of terwa.
1:03.7	They have true points of differentiation.
1:06.7	I am so excited to have I got here
1:09.4	to speak about these wines and about the sub-region
1:12.1	of Kota- Cezanne.
1:13.4	Welcome, Agat, thank you so much for being here.
1:16.0	Thank you for invitation.
1:17.7	Tell us about LeBron du Novell and how it came to be
1:21.6	because it started in 1963 and there was a group of
1:26.2	growers that came together and maybe we should talk a little bit about the
1:30.3	politics of the grower community in Champaign and how the big houses really dominate what goes on there because I'm assuming that all of these people probably at some point sold to Moet or one of the larger houses, right?
1:44.8	Yeah, it's true that just to talk about the context that in Champaign we used to talk about two groups, theations, so Negotiants is the big houses, big brands, and the Gervis.
1:56.7	So these big groups as to discuss always, to deal together, I would say that 90% of the Vineyard is owned by the growers and 70% of the
2:07.2	champagne has been sell by the negotion so that's why both groups as to
2:12.4	ask to discuss and as to deal always together because one group is owning and one group is selling the most parts.
	...

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