40% Cot (Malbec), 60% Gamay, touch of Grolleau.  From clay-limestone and silica soils.  No dosage necessary, these black-skinned grapes have all the sweetness you need.  2014 release.

You see what goes in the blend, you assume ‘too burly for Brut’ but this is lyric and effervescent with harmony all way through.  Color is lighter than you would expect with the thicker skins, a classic salmon pink.  Flavors are fresh and bountiful: red berries from the picket basket, whiff of hibiscus, articulated by a cool minerality.  Kept waiting for rusticity to rear up but he never showed his face.  Convincing.  Now.