Vintage 2016 l'Angelique Blanc de Blancs

Angélique (French): Angelic: 'something pure, light and ethereal.'

• Style: elegant & complex
• Vintage: 2016
• Grape variety: 100% Chardonnay
• Maturation sur lattes: +/- 55 months
• Disgorgement: October 2021
• Dosage: 0 gr/l, brut nature
• Subregion: Verzy, Montagne de Reims

For generations, the Mouzon and Leroux families have been grape growers and winemakers. At present, the Mouzon-Leroux estate has eight hectares of vineyards around the grand cru commune of Verzy, in the Montagne de Reims.

Since 2008, Mouzon Leroux has been working biodynamically and actively contributing to biodiversity in the landscape. In the vineyards, Sébastien Mouzon has also planted other crops between the grapes: tomatoes, thyme, berries, cherry and nut trees. With houses in the trees, he ensures that birds and bats have a shelter. In the winter, chickens and sheep roam between the vines, which keep the ground cover plants in check.

With extracts that he makes himself from camomile, nettle, tea tree, oregano, Mouzon helps his grape plants through phases of heat, drought or moisture. The fields mainly contain pinot noir, supplemented with a small portion of chardonnay, some meunier and grape varieties that you encounter in modest quantities in Champagne: arbane, pinot gris, pinot blanc and petit meslier.

The grape varieties are partly mixed in the vineyard. In the cellar, Sébastien Mouzon uses natural yeasts and malolactic fermentation, and the addition of sulphites is kept as low as possible. While the base wines are given plenty of time to develop after one or two years, after the second fermentation the champagnes remain in the cellar for three to eight years.

Mouzon-Leroux champagnes are layered, expressive and wonderfully complex.