Tarlant Champagne Extra Brut Nature “la Vigne d’Antan” 2004 750ml

#83 in Top 100, 2022. The 2004 Champagne Blanc de Blancs La Vigne d'Antan Brut Nature is 100% Chardonnay from ungrafted vines on sandy soils that face northwest. This is an exceptional wine. The nose is pretty and refined, with white flowers, marzipan, and lemon curd. It is supple, with a pillowy mousse, and has layers of complexity and depth, with custard, soft wet stone, and white peach. The palate is dry and certainly has mineral and energetic tension, but it feels balanced and not austere. Drink 2023-2043. Disgorged June of 2021.

The 2004 Blanc de Blancs La Vigne d'Antan is 100% barrel-fermented Chardonnay from 50+-year-old, un-grafted vines in the "Les Sables" vineyard in Oeuilly (10,000 vines per hectare) that was pickled on October 2. This millésime was scheduled to be disgorged in autumn this year—after 12.5 years on the lees. My sample is an exclusive Brut Nature pre-disgorgment from July 2017 that I tasted in November 2017. This impressively fresh and complex single vineyard vintage fizz has a straw-yellow color and opens with a deep, pure, intense and mineral bouquet with flavors of chalk, iodine, smoke and oak, giving the perfectly ripe, rather tropical fruit an extra dimension. It is intense yet straight, pure, fresh and bone dry on the palate, with great finesse and a very good structure and mineral complexity. Provided with zero added sugar, the 2004 has enough roundness for another decade in the bottle. The wine did not undergo malolactic fermentation. This old vines Chardonnay should be perfect with many kinds of food, even lobster. However, its best position is after dinner since it cleans your palate and brings you back to life. A great and vitalizing Champagne!

The 2004 Brut Nature La Vigne d'Antan emerges from a parcel of own-rooted Chardonnay planted on sand. A wine that has benefitted from time in bottle, the 2004 is positively stunning today. Lime, grape fruit white flowers crushed rocks and white pepper are delineated with striking precision. The 2004 has always been terrific, but today it sizzles with a level of energy I don’t recall seeing in the past. La Vigne d'Antan remains one of the most unique and compelling wines in Champagne.

Superb clarity, bold purity and uncompromising style here. Super taut, citrus aromas and flavors with bready and chalky minerals. Super dry, compelling style. Drink now or hold.

100% Chardonnay. From a plot of ungrafted or non-greffée vines on very sandy soils in Oeuilly, planted by the Tarlants' grandfather, and unsurprisingly named "Les Sables". The name "Antan" means essentially "yesteryear", a reference to the historical roots of this bottling as well as the old-fashioned layering method called provignage by which the vineyard was propagated. The organically farmed fruit was hand-harvested and gently pressed; the juice was fermented with natural yeasts in stainless steel vats. The wine was aged in barrel with no malolactic fermentation before bottling in May 2005. The bottles were aged sur lattes, disgorged in 2020 and finished with zero dosage. It is worth noting that the Tarlants distinguish between terroir wines and vintage wines. This can be a little tricky to discern at first. The terroir wines (La Vigne d'Antan, La Vigne d'Or, La Vigne Royale) are often vintage-specific--but the vintage is not the emphasis--as evidenced by the fact that the vintage only appears in very small type on the back label. La Vigne d'Antan is an example of this. On the other hand, the vintage-focused bottling, of which there is only one per vintage, features the year in large print on the front label, with its name essentially appearing as a smaller subtitle below the vintage; the name of the vintage bottling also changes each year (for example, the 2004 is 'L'Aérienne" and the 2005 "La Lutétienne").