Champagne Henri Dosnon Rosé Brut 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.
Davy has recuperated a small percentage of the vineyards that his ancestors
once possessed– the fruit from which goes into Champagne Dosnon – but he
also purchases fruit from neighbors in the Côte des Bars for Champagne Henri
Dosnon, a second label named in honor of his grandfather. Henri Dosnon Brut
Sélection is a blend of mainly Pinot Noir with about 10% Chardonnay that is
aged in bottle for 20 months before disgorgement and finished with a dosage
of 9 g/L.
