Pierre PétersLe Mesnil-sur-Oger, Côte des Blancs

Producer profile
PL "this renowned estate has been producing champagne since 1919 and today it's a source of consistently excellent blanc de blancs." 18 hectares across four villages. Cuvée de Réserve is "one of the finest nonvintage champagnes on the market." Perle du Mesnil is a made in a low-pressure style. L'Esprit is the vintage cuvée "sourced from specific parcels, selected for complexity and character." Réserve Oubliée is "an unusual champagne, drawn from a perpetual cuvee of reserve wines used for the nonvintage blanc de blancs. Containing wines dating back to 1988, it's a champagne of exceptional clarity and detail of expression." Cuvée Spéciale Les Chétillons, first produced as Special Club, was created in 1971. "One of the greatest blanc de blancs in Champagne, it possesses a rich, complex depth of fruit, anchored by racy acidity and a vivid chalkiness." L'Étonnant Monsieur Victor is a blend of Réserve Oubliée and Les Chétillons. Rodolphe Péters describes his terroirs in terms of colors: "Le Mesnil is gray - austere, stony, much more limestone than chalk. Oger is white, delicate, with aromas of red fruit and tangerine. Avize is yellow-orange, based on ripe citrus, grapefruit, apricot, mandarin orange. It's a large, full-bodied chardonnay. Cramant is complexity, maturity, with a brown tone: sweet spices, cinnamon, licorice, green tea. It's an autumnal wine." He also associates them with the seasons: winter, spring, summer, fall, in similar fashion. Les Chétillons is one of Le Mesnil's most renowned vineyards and several growers own vines here, e.g. Pierre and Robert Moncuit. "Most iconic of all, though, is Le Chétillons champagne made by Pierre Péters" by blending three different parcels from the vineyard. "As a champagne, it's capable of great finesse and poise, carrying its weight with an elegant, chalk-driven grace. While it can be a little austere in its youth, it starts to hit its stride around ten years after the vintage, and it generally hits its peak at about twenty." TyS 7/10 Pierre Péters champagnes "eloquently articulate their terroirs", and in them "minerality assumes a personality all of its own." "Péters speaks of the minerality of Les Chétillons as crushed oyster shells, sea salt, and flavours of the ocean that laid down the chalk. If you taste a stone in the vineyard, it is salty." "Péters' vines are lavished some of the most attentive care in all of Champagne." "Structure and freshness are derived from a combination of minerality, acidity, and 'pleasant bitterness' from lees contact." Wines are kept "on gross lees for long periods after alcoholic fermentation" and this keeps wines fresh, allowing for low sulphur dioxide. Wines are fermented in steel only but the reseves are kept in steel, concrete, and oak foudres. Read the full profile, it is excellent. ToS 89 "value". "Lovely, purist style of linear, razor-sharp, precise Champagnes with an unmistakable Côte des Blancs chalky minerality." TT 2019 Champagne catalog page 203 and 2017 catalog page 13.

Tasting notes

Réserve Oubliée. QR code on the back leads to a detailed description of the cuvée. Base 2012, disgorged in April 2018. Pretty label with the house name in a raised black gel pen font. Saturated golden color with just a hint of green. Very dry and pleasantly developed. Nuances of flint, chalk, lightly-toasted pastry. Faint associations with wild strawberry, warm pine, licorice, toasted anise seed, and cucumber skin. Shows well in Gabriel Glas and Zalto Burgundy glasses. Zalto Champagne glass highlights the flinty aspects. TT 2018 Champagne catalog page 14. Purchased at Molly's Spirits in summer 2020 for $110. ⭐⭐

Rosé for Albane. QR code on the back leads to a most detailed page, bravo! Base 2016, disgorged in March 2019. Dosage 8g. Follow the link for the terrific technical sheet. Very deep color, nearly red. Spicy and fairly sweet but with a distinctive chalky backstop. Full-flavored and fragrant, this feels more like a rosé than a champagne. There is a fleeting note of lilac when contrasted with dark chocolate. Photographed in Jancis glass. TT 2019 Champagne catalog page 204. Purchased at Marty's in autumn 2020 for $80. ⭐

L'Esprit 2006. Disgorged in January 2012. Calm pop and a clean cork that stayed compact. There is no cellar odor of any kind and the wine smells very clean, almost withdrawn, from the mouth of the bottle. There is some floating sediment. In Zalto White Wine glass the bubbles are barely forming but in Zalto Champagne there is a restrained regular pulse of effervescence. It reminds me of the underwater spring that frustrated the ice and kept the ugly duckling alive in the Melodiya version. There is sufficient effervescence on the palate, the wine is not flat. It is incredibly appealing, different, layered, delicious, and interesting. Fragrantly bitter, vocal, and evocative, it eludes precise associations. Besides all that, it is full of pastry charm. TT 2013 Champagne catalog page 15. Purchased at Catherine's in autumn 2020 for $85. ⭐⭐⭐

L'Esprit 2013. No disgorgement date printed and I forgot to scan the QR code on the back. Thick mousse with ribbons of bubbles spiraling and traveling like twisters in the glass. Instantly appealing. Smells like sun-warmed skin and maybe chalk. Wildly tasty. Very dry. Crunchy and bitter like a green plum but also darkly toasty and nectarous. Empty Zalto Champagne glass is very chalky-bready. Maybe warm sorrel leaf? A touch of flint? Suntanned sandy toes. TT 2018 Champagne catalog page 14. Purchased at Molly's in autumn 2020 for $76. ⭐⭐⭐

Cuvée de Réserve Magnum. Base 2014, disgorged May 2018. Easy composite cork. The smell from the mouth of the bottle is a little wild, alcoholic, and rustic. The pour is very foamy, slightly green in hue, with very fine ribbons of carbonation. The same farmy or sulphuric nuance is felt on the palate. More than a nuance, unfortunately, the whiff of the barnyard is pretty strong here. The finish is transparent, not blank or abrupt but quickly passing. Rather inelegant upfront, the wine does begin to evolve on day one but never quite sheds its hooves and horns. To be clear, all the usual Péters charm is still there, fanning itself in the calèche behind the lathery animal. More settled the following day and the day after. The finish is still fairly transparent but it becomes a more comfortable ride. A companionable filly of mild manners and equanimity, and only a little bit of equine odor. I don't think this bottle was right. No stars. Purchased at Craft & Cru in summer 2021 for $136.