Jean-Velut Brut Rose Champagne NV 750ml

FRANCE : CHAMPAGNE : AUBE / MONTGUEUX

ORGANIC : Pinot Noir

LIGHT-BODIED, CRANBERRY, TART STRAWBERRY, CHALK MINERAL, SMOKY FLINT, TIGHT MOUSSE

Montgueux is a stark chalk hill rising out of the flat wheat fields around Troyes — an isolated outcropping of Turonian chalk and silex at the edge of the Champagne appellation, and the geological source of the cutting minerality and smoky gunflint character that runs through every wine made here. The village grows Chardonnay on 90% of its slopes — the soils have earned it the nickname "Montrachet of Champagne" — but Jean Velut planted Burgundy clones of Pinot Noir on their plots in 1968, and it is still those vines, now 55 years old, that go into the Brut Rosé.

Current winemaker Benoît Velut — the third generation, trained at Domaine Lafarge in Burgundy and Piper-Heidsieck before returning to Montgueux — farms organically and keeps the cellar work direct: no oak, base wines fermented in tank. The Brut Rosé uses an unusual split method: half the wine undergoes saignée (skin maceration for color and weight), the other half carbonic maceration (whole-cluster CO₂ fermentation for fragrance and freshness). Three years on the lees on top of that. Dosage is a restrained 7 g/L — enough to round the finish, not enough to mask the chalk.

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