Cuvee Sainte Anne Brut NV
Chartogne-Taillet
Vallee-de-la-Marne

Sainte Anne is a blend of 50% Chardonnay and 50% red grape varieties (mostly Pinot Noir)

Wine Spectator: 93 Points
This vibrant Champagne leads with an enticing floral note opening on the raw silk?textured palate to reveal a finely meshed range of salted Marcona almond ripe white cherry blood orange pith and lime blossom flavors that echo through the lingering finish. Classy. Chardonnay Pinot Noir and Meunier. Disgorged April 2023. Drink now through 2028. 1000 cases imported.

Vinous: 92 Points
The NV (2019) Brut Cuvée Ste.-Anne is fabulous. Rich, ample and layered, the Brut Cuvée Ste.-Anne hits all the right notes. I especially admire its vinous intensity and overall resonance. Dried pear, flowers mint, white pepper and lemon confit are some of the many notes that grace this exquisite Champagne from Alexandre Chartogne. It's great to see this bottling - one of my perennial favorites - bounce back from a lackluster showing last year. Best of all, Cuvée Ste.-Anne remains an exceptional value in the world of fine grower Champagne. This release is based on 2019. Dosage is 5 grams per liter. Disgorged: June 2022. (Drink between 2023-2030)

The Sainte Anne cuvée is a blend of several harvest years. Its composition is often 50% wines from the year preceding its bottling, and 50% older wines, in reserve for 2 to 5 years.

Sainte Anne is now aged and vinified in 228-, 350- and 2000-litre barrels. A small portion of this Champagne has been aged in tanks, mostly the reserve wines. The Champagnes of our village need oxygen to deliver the message indicative of their origins. Each plot is vinified differently (topped-up or not, casks of different provenances, etc.). This enables us to obtain unique and identifiable characteristics from this period in the life of our Champagnes. Once the aging of wines from each plot has been completed, we combine these different reflections of the village to create a blend that aims to be fully representative of Merfy's wines. We seek the crystalline texture emblematic of wines from Merfy's sandy limestone terroirs, to preserve our village's unique identity.

The wines do not tolerate filtration. Filtration would modify the wines' textures too much, and therefore alter the balance of richness/saltiness on the palate. The wines of Sainte Anne are blends from different plots, but also from different vintages. Older harvest years soften and temper the lively and spirited character of the younger wines. After aging in the cellar, Sainte Anne is disgorged with a Brut dosage that hardly varies from year to year. The dosage tests indicate that 4-7 g of sugar are needed to rebalance the aggressiveness and vigour of the bubbles, without masking the nature of the wine and its density. We use a liqueur made from the same wine as the cuvée that is being disgorged.

The Sainte Anne cuvée is the sensory translation of wines from the different soils of the village of Merfy. Each of the village's plots contributes part of its identity to "create" this cuvée. Sainte Anne's textures are revealed throughout the entire length TEXTURE on the palate. Often initially opulent on the palate, the salts from the sands then give rise to a salivating bitterness. The finish leaves a tight structure that recalls the origin of Champagne wines.