Champagne Philipponnat Clos de Goisses Juste Rosé 2012 (Disg. March 2022)

The majestic Clos des Goisses vineyard rises steeply from the edge of the Marne River and is planted to 3.5 hectares of Pinot Noir and two hectares of Chardonnay.

This historically revered south-facing slope was the first in the region to be bottled as a single-vineyard wine. Today, with a focus on precise viticulture, old mass-selection vines, moderate yields and ripe fruit at harvest, the wine has never been better.

The extremely chalky soils of the Clos des Goisses, its aspect and atypical warmth—the average growing season temperature here is 1.5°C higher than most of Champagne—result in one of Champagne’s most powerful and intense wines. Yet what makes this site so special is its capacity to retain freshness even in vintages that are, on average, hotter than ever before. There is a signature freshness to the wine and a sustained sense of acidity that comes from the chalk, even in vintages that might be seen analytically to lack acidity.

The Juste Rosé was added to the portfolio in 1999. The wine is based on a similar blend as the Clos des Goisses Blanc, with an addition of saignée Pinot from a number of Clos des Goisses lieux-dits, including La Dure, Le Collet, Les 28 Verges, Les Petits Cintres and Les Jolivets Noirs. Only two to three thousand bottles are produced in a given year, and the wine is aged for nine years and put on the market only when perfectly mature. The first release since 2009, the 2012 was disgorged in March 2022

The blend comprises 68% Pinot Noir and 32% Chardonnay vinified in wooden barrels with no malolactic conversion. Following secondary fermentation, the wine aged on lees for more than nine years at a constant temperature of 12°C in the house’s historic cellars in Mareuil-sur-Aÿ. The wine is extra brut (4.5 g/L dosage) to give full expression to the vinosity and minerality of this exceptional vineyard.