NV Geoffroy "Expression" 1er Cru Brut, Champagne, France

ABOUT THIS WINE

Approximately 50% of this wine each year comes from a perpetual cuvée started by Jean-Baptiste Geoffroy’s father, René in 1970. This makes it the oldest and most complex blend of vintages in any non-vintage wine we work with. For the base of "Expression", half of the total perpetual cuvée is drawn off from two large concrete vats and replaced with the current harvests’ wine. Small amounts of wine from every vintage stretching from the year the Beatles broke up, through the last harvest is in these vats – this is a 50 year old reserve. When you taste this wine, think about the history in the glass and how rare it is to have a non-vintage wine this complex and layered.

ABOUT THIS PRODUCER

The Geoffroy family have been winemakers since the seventeenth century and the property has stayed in the family for almost 400 years, uninterrupted. In addition to prime parcels in Cumières, the family has holdings in Damery, Hautvillers, and Dizy. Geoffroy’s vines average about 20 years of age, and the oldest are from 1926. Viticulture is described as lutte intégrée, or “integrated pest control”—it is heavily aimed at sustainability, eschewing all chemical weedkillers and employing methods such as the planting of cover crops, tilling of the soil and the encouraged habitation of predatory insects to combat vine pests.