2012 R & L Legras Presidence Vieilles Vignes Brut Blanc de Blancs

R & L Legras is in the town of Chouilly, in the Cote de Blancs. The Champagne house was founded in 1808 by Honore Legras and the family still owns and operates the domaine. Legras owns or control 60 acres of Grand Cru vineyards planted to Chardonnay. In Champagne only 17 off the 345 wine producing villages are classified as Grand Cru, making R & L Legras one of a small group of exclusively Grand Cru producers. The estate produces 100% Grand Cru Chardonnay Champagne, and a rose using a small amount of Pinot Noir. The luxury cuvee is the Saint Vincent, only produced from select vintages. Legras produces 15,000 to 20,000 cases of wine a year. R & L Legras Champagnes are not widely known in the U.S., but in France and Europe they are the “house” Champagnes at many highly acclaimed restaurants.

Champagne is a small, beautiful wine growing region northeast of Paris whose famous name is misused a million times a day. As wine enthusiasts and all French people are well aware, only sparkling wines produced in Champagne from grapes grown in Champagne can be called Champagne. Sparkling wines produced anywhere else, including in other parts of France, must be called something besides Champagne. Champagne producers are justifiably protective of their wines and the prestige associated with true Champagne. Though the region was growing grapes and making wines in ancient times, it began specializing in sparkling wine in the 17th century, when a Benedictine monk named Dom Pierre Pérignon formulated a set guidelines to improve the quality of the local sparkling wines. Despite legends to the contrary, Dom Pérignon did not “invent” sparkling wine, but his rules about aggressive pruning, small yields and multiple pressings of the grapes were widely adopted, and by the 18th and 19th centuries Champagne had become the wine of choice in fashionable courts and palaces throughout Europe. Today there are 75,000 acres of vineyards in Champagne growing Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Pinot Meunier. Champagne’s official appellation system classifies villages as Grand Cru or Premier Cru, though there are also many excellent Champagnes that simply carry the regional appellation. Along with well-known international Champagne houses there are numerous so-called “producer Champagnes,” meaning wines made by families who, usually for several or more generations, have worked their own vineyards and produced Champagne only from their own grapes.