Perrier-Jouet Belle Epoque Blanc de Blancs 2002 Champagne 75cl

Perrier-Jouët own twenty-seven hectares of Grand Cru plots in the Chardonnay-dominant village of Cramant. The two that are most precious to the House are Bourons Leroy and Bourons du Midi, as both plots contain rare pockets of pure chalk soil. The prestige cuvée, Belle Epoque Blanc de Blancs, is a unique blend of grapes from both of these very rare vineyards: an exclusive champagne that represents just one percent of the total Belle Epoque production.

In 1902, Emile Gallé designed a unique new bottle to express the vibrancy and spirit of the era. A swirl of Japanese anemones wreathed in gold was painted onto four custom-made magnums. However, this was too expensive for mass production and only became a permanent feature on the bottles from 1969 when the first Belle Epoque cuvée was released.

Weather: The 2002 vintage shaped up magnificently over the spring, with no significant frost and near-perfect flowering. Then followed a summer marked by long, sunny periods interspersed with regular cloudy and rainy spells. The vines were in good health and the dehydration of the grape berries helped them reach new heights of ripeness. Generally considered one of the best harvests in the last twenty years.

News Article: Perrier-Jouët Belle Epoque Blanc de Blancs 2002 performed well in our comprehensive Prestige Cuvées from 2002 blind tasting in October 2016 with Jancis Robinson MW. Read the full write-up here.

Technical Information:
Vineyards: 100% Grand Cru | Cramant: Bourons Leroy, Bourons du Midi
Grape Varieties: 100% Chardonnay
Ageing: 8 years on the lees
Dosage: 8 g/l
Drink: Now to 2028

Tasting Note: A perfect growing season in 2002 created grapes of incredible ripeness. This rare champagne is a pale yellow colour with a stream of fine bubbles. On the nose: hints of lemon and citrus. On the palate: a freshness of tropical fruits and hints of fresh ginger. A tremendous expression of the best vintage in champagne.

Champagne Perrier-Jouët was formed from the marriage of Pierre-Nicolas Perrier and Adéle Jouët in 1811. Three years later, they bought a building on the famous Avenue de Champagne and this became, and still is, the headquarters of the House. Two centuries of heritage handed down from only seven Cellar Masters has ensured that the craftsmanship and elegance of their champagnes has remained consistent.

Chardonnay is the backbone of the Perrier-Jouët style. Requiring time to fully develop, they are typically reductive in character, quite closed and mineral in their youth. Given time to age slowly, their potential is magnificent. After spending ten years under the apprenticeship of his predecessor, Hervé Deschamps became Chef de Caves in 1993, his long tenure guaranteeing the philosophy of this historic House will survive in the continued creation of its unique style.

Cellar Master: Hervé Deschamps
Winery Location: Épernay | Champagne, France
Champagne Region: Côte des Blancs
Annual Production (bottles): 2,400,000

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The Perrier-Jouët brand was created with the marriage of Pierre-Nicolas Perrier, the uncle of Joseph Perrier, and Adèle Jouët in 1811. Pierre-Nicolas soon created a healthy export demand for his product but it was his son, Charles Perrier, who did most to build up the reputation of this Champagne – supplying it to the courts of Napoleon III, King Leopold of the Belgians and Queen Victoria. He built Chateau Perrier opposite Maison Perrier-Jouët in the Avenue de Champagne, which is used today as the local library and museum.

Perrier-Jouët has always been light, elegant and true-brut in style, with heaps of fruit-flavour. The Chardonnay content of Perrier-Jouët champagnes is often thought to be considerably higher than it actually is, because Perrier-Jouët's vineyards in Cramant yield such dominant fruit. Perrier-Jouët was the first Champagne house to display the year of the vintage on its bottles and they also decided that if, as sometimes happens, the harvests do not meet its exacting quality standards, they would not compromise and thus would abandon production and not release a vintage champagne for that year.

Hervé Deschamps became the seventh Perrier-Jouët Cellar Master in 1993. The ten previous years he spent at his predecessor's side helped him master the subtleties of the house style and its unique floral tonality. As a guardian of this knowledge, he turns each cuvée into a unique champagne that expresses all the characteristic elegance and finesse of the house of Perrier-Jouët. "I throw myself into each composition with one combined effort, like the creative flow of an artist, at that moment when intuition, sensitivity and skill somehow inexplicably come together."

Perrier-Jouët’s prestige cuvée Belle Époque was the idea of a previous owner’s associate, Pierre Ernst. He found a dusty old bottle in a cupboard at Perrier-Jouët: the enamel decorated anemones bottle signed by Emile Galle, the great art nouveau glassmaker, who designed it in 1902. Galle had created the design just two years before his death to evoke the Gay Nineties and Ernst thought it would make an ideal bottle to hold a special cuvée. The first vintage to be released in this bottle was 1964, launched in 1969, and it was sold exclusively through Maxim's and Fauchon, the elite grocery store. In the early 1980s, Belle Époque Rosé was launched with the 1976 vintage.

The house owns 27 hectares of Grand Cru plots in Cramant. The two that are most precious to the House are Bourons Leroy and Bourons du Midi, as both plots contain rare pockets of pure chalk soil. Both combine to create the rare cuvée Belle Époque Blanc de Blancs which represents just one percent of the total Belle Époque production. Deschamps has previously commented: “A unique cuvée, Belle Époque Blanc de Blancs reveals the purity and authenticity of the Perrier-Jouët terroir.”