Jean Vesselle ‘Oeil de Perdrix’ Rosé Bouzy Champagne

WS95 In modern Champagne, any color that might bleed from the skins into the juice is usually filtered out, so the wine is clear. In this traditional style, Delphine Vesselle allows the ripe Pinot Noir grapes from her vineyards in Bouzy to bleed color from their skins, and doesn’t filter it out, hoping to preserve what she describes as the soul of Pinot Noir. Everyone on our panel was struck by this wine’s beauty, as its delicate touch seemed to connect with every scent and taste receptor at once. Auction-consultant Craig Ganzer commented on that complexity: “I just kept taking notes,” he said. The pink color and the range of green herbs in the scent seem to resonate through the wine, taking its radish-like tension and formal structure in an understated direction.

WSI94+ The orange-pink color of this “eye of the partridge” Pinot Noir-based wine historically was the hue of most Champagne made in Bouzy in the nineteenth century. (The wine’s singular hue is like the color of a partridge’s eye.) Pinot Noir grapes are macerated briefly to extract color then pressed. Pink roses, lavender, wild strawberry and pomegranate.

PAIRING SUGGESTIONS: As an aperitif or throughout a meal; its acidic balance and red-wine body make it endlessly flexible at the table. Estate vineyards are located in and around the village of Bouzy. Soils are the classic, chalky terroir of the Montagne de Reims. AGE OF