100% Chardonnay.
An excellent, dry, still white wine, exhibiting aromas of crisp green orchard fruit, peach, white flowers and nutmeg. Medium to full-bodied, layered and precise, its bright spine of acidity is cloaked in an attractive core of fruit. Côteaux Champenois are Champagne base wines prior to the second fermentation that gives bubbles. This still wine shows how good are the Ay Grand Cru produced by Henri Giraud, and will please all the Chablis and Burgundy lovers. This cuvée is produced in limited quantity only, each bottle being numbered, and come in its individual wooden box.
- Contemporary of Henri IV and his descendants, the Hémart family settled permanently in Aÿ at the beginning of the 17th century.
- Henri Giraud is one of the rare Champagne houses that remains independent and family-run, by Claude Giraud, the 12th generation of the family at the helm of the house today.
- The maison owns 10 hectares, mainly planted to Pinot Noir on chalk soils, and purchases grapes from selected growers for a total equivalent of 25 hectares at its disposal.
- Among these are fabulous Grand Crus, providing prime fruit for the house’s top cuvées.
- Much has happened since the American wine critic Robert Parker wrote: “Henri Giraud, the greatest champagne you’ve never heard of”, a phrase he repeated often, followed by: “This is the way I think Krug SHOULD taste”.
- The whole vineyard is worked in sustainable viticulture and under certification of high environmental value (HVE).
- With only 250,000 bottles of which only a few thousand bottles for its grande cuvees, these champagnes are sought-after by collectors and lovers of great wines from around the world.