Well-spiced and mouthwatering, this vivid Champagne offers a finely detailed bead and expressive flavors of black raspberry, dried apricot, orange blossom, fleur de sel and crystallized honey. Clean-cut and minerally on the finish. Disgorged December 2014. Drink now through 2020. 3,500 cases made.

The Laherte NV Brut Ultradition Disg. 10/2012 - 60% Meunier; 30% Chardonnay; 10% Pinot -is exuberantly dominated by juicy and vivacious lime, peach, grapefruit, and Persian as well as honeydew melons, their succulent fruit mingled on a polished palate with nut oils and shitake, as well as suffused with a saliva-drawing sweet-saline, iodine-rich savor of crab and lobster shell reduction that makes for a compelling finish. Yes, this is certainly a capital "U" umami-rich wine! I'm astounded to realize - given its sense of energy and vivacity - that it is based on vintage 2009. Whatever be "ultradition," it's an approach I can only heartily commend to other growers! (Of course, you might not be able to make anything like this if you lack that "secret ingredient," good Meunier; and scrolling down to my review of Lahertes' "Les 7" might raise suspicions of a connection between their greatest successes - as I perceive them -and the prominence of unjustly neglected cepages!)