Dosnon - Champagne Recolte Rose NV

A model for the future of small, artisanal Champagne houses, Champagne Dosnon is the brainchild of Davy Dosnon who grew up in a beautiful region of rolling hills, wheat fields, and vineyards. Davy studied viticulture and worked in top Burgundy wine houses before moving back to the village of Lingey in the Côte des Bar region of Champagne for the peace and quiet and to begin to reassemble his family’s ancestral vineyards. The Côte des Bar is located in the southernmost area of Champagne in the Pays d’Aube. Politically and geologically, this sub-zone is as far as you can get from Reims and Épernay. When Champagne’s original borders were drawn, there was a lively debate on whether or not the Aube should be included. Here the terroir is starkly different from northern Champagne and its famed chalky soils. In the Aube, the terroir resembles that of Chablis – clay over Kimmeridgian and Portlandian limestone. These soils produce wines of great delineation, power, and purity. Davy farms 7.5 hectares of vines situated just half an hour north of Chablis. He owns just 2 hectares himself, and he leases the remaining. The wines of Dosnon are masterfully mineral, vinous bottlings of Chardonnay and Pinot. Fermenting entirely in former Puligny-Montrachet barrels, these champagnes might as well be Chablis with bubbles for all their mineral-packed goodness. Dosages are very low (if at all), and the wines benefit from the restraint. None of his wines are fined or filtered.

The base wine for the Récolte Rosée is Pinot Noir with a little Pinot Meunier to give its salmon-pink hue. Meunier is not widely planted in the Aube, but Davy feels that it brings a spicy fruitiness to his Rosé. The base wine is fermented and aged in used Puligny-Montrachet barrels followed by 2 years aging sur lattes with a dosage of 5g/L. It bears all the hallmarks of the Donson style – pure, focused, intensely mineral but with a precise, spicy, red-fruit and orange peel lift to the flavors.

Hand harvested, manual press, fermented in used 228L Puligny-Montrachet barrels, second and third fill AGING 2 years minimum sur latte, 30% reserve wine aged in barrel, 5g/L dosage

“Davy Dosnon runs this small, artisan cellar in Avirey-Lingey. Dosnon pursues sustainable viticulture and makes his wines in a fairly non-manipulated style. All of the wines are fermented and aged in oak (although they rarely show overt influence from the wood) and are bottled with low dosage. Based on what I have tasted so far, Dosnon is one of Champagne’s most promising young wineries.” – Antonio Galloni

"From Kimmeridgian soils in the Côte des Bar, Dosnon's NV Récolte Rose is a blended, oak-fermented rosé Champagne dosed as Brut (dosage: five grams per liter). Very light in its rosé color but intense on the fruity and floral nose, this is a full-bodied, intense, elegant and well-structured rosé with oaky flavors and even some fine tannins in the long, aromatic, firmly woven finish." - 91 Points, Robert Parker's Wine Advocate

Producer: Dosnon

Country: France

Region: Champagne

Varietal: Pinot Noir, Pinot Meunier

Appellation: Champagne

Vintage: NV

Size: 750ml