Launois - Le Mesnil-sur-Oger Grand Cru

Bernard Launois makes a sophisticated and elegant range of classic Le Mesnil-sur-Oger Chardonnay. Established in 1872 and now 36 ha in size with 22 ha of vineyards in Le Mesnil-sur-Oger, Avize, Oger and Cramant, and 14 ha of vines in Sezanne. 22ha is bottled by the family with the remainder being sold off. Viticulture is all certified organic – average vine age is high and picking here is always a week later than other growers as Bernard is searching for full ripeness and maturity. The vinification style is classic in flat bottomed stainless steel tanks, leaving the wines to enrich on their lees for much longer than usual. Bernard is one of the best producers in Le Mesnil-sur-Oger – most Champagne journalists say he is the best after Salon! His wines have been impossible to procure in the past, with 80% of bottles going to local clients with the remainder to Netherlands and Japan, but finally we are managing to secure tiny but reasonable quantities. A little is better than nothing! The style here is for purity, intensity, weight and finesse. Bernard is a warm and gentle personality who always finds the time to talk to passing visitors. Daughters Severine and Caroline along with husbands Benoit and Franck are pushing the family business to new levels of greatness. Severine is married to Benoit Marguet from the as of now ‘defunct’ Champagne Marguet-Bonnerave in Ambonnay. Benoit has recently started up a new negoce business called ‘Marguet Pere et Fils’, so not only does Benoit manage this new ‘negoce’ he is also responsible for vine propagation at Launois, currently working on a project to use best cuttings material from their own very old vineyard plots to replace dead vines. He has worked as far away as Washington State and is interested in biodynamics and geo-biology. Bernard has established a delightful wine museum in the cellars of his property with many artefacts from years gone by. Always a joy to visit when touring around the region – naturally the museum tour is followed by a tasting. The family has been busy over the last few years building a new cuverie in the flat pastures just east of Oger. They have had to sell some grapes to finance the construction – which has meant there has been less wine to spread around. Also they have sold off their old cuverie in Avize to Eric de Sousa for his new negoce business. This new facility has finally been completed and now production can scale up as less grapes are sold off. This means we will get larger allocations of these classic Champagnes.

Demand for Launois Champagne is very high. Having been discovered many years ago by the Swedish Champagne guru Richard Juhlin means that the Swedes get a huge allocation. Launois really made its mark at a huge ‘2000 Millenium Tasting’ of all the great cuvées going as far back as 1928. The Launois 1990 Special Club was rated as the ‘best 1990’ beating the likes of Selosse, Salon, Crystal etc. We are pushing hard to increase our allocations but it is not easy – every last bottle is reserved – every last bottle is pre-sold. The style at Launois is at the richer end of the spectrum – with longer lees contact in tank adding much more weight and complexity compared with Cazals or Moncuit. When we tasted in May of this year, all the base wines for this years production were still in tank – maturing and gaining that tiny amount of complexity that Bernard and Benoit are looking for. The new facility has three presses and they contract press grapes for Moet et Chandon during the vintage. There has been a bottle and label change across the range – necessitated by the fact that an unscrupulous pretender by the name of ‘Leon Launois’ in the same village has been masquerading his wines as ‘Launois Pere et Fils’. Rather than fight them in the courts – Benoit has revamped the range with a copy of the ‘original’ family designed ancient Champagne bottle and a new elegant label.